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FROM THE SHADOWS 



OR 



A HYPNOTIST'S IDEA OF 



HEAVEN and HELL 



AND 



ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE, 



BY 



GEO. C. PRICE, L. L. B. 



COPYRIGHTED NOV. IS, 1897. 



LEACH BROS,, ART PRINTERS, CARTHAGE, MO. 







topical Outline* 



PAGES. 

LECTURE I. 

The Journey of Life . 12-14 

Observations on Talking 14-17 

LECTURE II. 

Facts and Fancies 18-20 

Mental Evolution 20-23 

LECTURE III. 

Pathetic Visions 23-25 

A Laige Majority 25-28 

LECTURE IV. 

The Big Three 28-30 

Civil Service Reform 30-34 

LECTURE V. 

The God of Goodness 35-38- 

A Scrapping Match 38-41 

LECTURE VI. 

Soo-ci-etta vs. the Church 4*"45 

The Fool Killer a Necessity 45*47 

LECTURE VII. 

Spiritual Longing vs. False Knowledge 48-56 

LECTURE VIII. 

The Big Three Again 5°-59 

The Christian Graces 59"^ 2 

LECTURE IX. 

The Spiritual Flower Garden 63-65 

Questions and Answers 65-69 

LECTURE X. 

Social and Moral Observations 69-72 

Fools, Cranks, and Philosophers 7 2 "75 

LECTURE XI. 

Coffee-Coolers and Block- Voters 75"77 

Social Monstrosities 77-81 



LECTURE XII. 
Shooting Folly at Long Range 81-83 

LECTURE XIII. 

The Middle Way 84-86 

Conditions of Happiness 87-91 

LECTURE XIV. 

Good and Perfect Gifts 9 I_ 93 

The Demands of the Age 94~97 

LECTURE XV. 

Searching for Truth 97-100 

Continuing the Search 100-102 

LECTURE XVI. 

Conflict of the Silent Forces 103-105 

The Last Round-Up 105-108 

LECTURE XVII. 

Through the Golden Gates 109-110 

A Three Cornered Fight 1 10-1 13 

LECTURE XVIII. 

Searching for God 113-117 

The Old and the New 1 17-120 

LECTURE XIX. 

Reaching a Climax 120-124 

Conceptions of Divinity 124-126 

LECTURE XX. 

Driving Out the Money-Changers 127-130 

Evolution the Divine Law 130-131 

LECTURE XXI. 

A Mountain and a Volapuk 131 -133 

Developing a Spiritual World I 33 _I 37 

LECTURE XXII. 

Converting the Soul , . 137-141 

Reading the Book of Life 141-144 

LECTURE XXIII. 

Blowing the Ram's Horn 144-147 

From the Shadows 147-150 

One Way to Hypnotize 151-161 



"There's nothing in this wide, wide world 
Which makes a man so glad, 

As to know he's taking sorrow 

From the hearts of them that's sad." 



Ipre&icattcm* 



"Cultured society is but whitewashed 
crime. It is the school of egotism, which 
seeks in vain to show its virtue by gaudy 
words, while native modesty alone can prac- 
tice those virtues which she so silently and 
eloquently teaches." — Tolstoi. 

"Wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father's business?" — Christ. 

"For every man doth indeed have desire 
and business at some time during his life." — 
Shakespeare. 

"In the explanation of natural phenomena, 
seek to obtain all the knowledge you can; and 
when this fails, refer all the rest to God." — 
Ben Hur. 

God is the personification of goodness, 
and goodness is personified by grouping His 
seven principal attributes, as conceived by 
the author of From the Shadows. 



preface* 



The thoughts presented in this book are 
chiefly the products of a careful observation 
from the social, and moral lookout, when con- 
sidered in relation to human happiness. 

The title is merely suggestive, as, indeed, 
is the subject-matter itself. But being strictly 
a creature of thought and imagination, it 
becomes, to some extent, a child of miracu- 
lous conception, and, although an imperfect 
one, it hopes to find a home in the minds and 
hearts of all liberal thinking people. 

Long ere the flowers had bloomed in the 
Spring (of '97) we had conceived the bold 
and reckless design of rushing into print, 
the example has become contagious in the 
best of families, the temptation with us is 
no longer to be resisted, and, standing boldly 
up in front of the audience, we have made a 
feeble attempt to shie our would-be literary 
caster way over into the magic circle of pub- 
lic favor. At this suggestion, if any of our 
friends should manifest a disposition to think 
lightly, and, loudly laughing, say, "Shoot the 
hat!" then we beg leave to inform them that 
we haven't time to do so; that we are gunning 
for larger game, and that we will never, no, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



never, be satisfied unless we shall succeed, to 
some extent, at least, in capturing the human 
mind. 

These pages are written partly to gratify 
the author's irrepressible desire to join the 
procession, but principally to fill the tradi- 
tional long-felt want, not because within the 
last twelve months the country at large has 
suffered any dearth of literary performances. 
Upon the contrary, it is well known that we 
have been talked to learnedly and eloquently 
of chaos and cosmos, delighted with the good 
old songs, and made to smile sweetly at the 
sunny side of a preacher's life, while the silver- 
tongued orators have spoken to us pathetically 
of the life and character of Dickens, who is 
our modern spiritual Shakespeare. 

But the end is not yet, for the Spirit of 
Inspiration is being revived among us. The 
beautiful Good of Reason is enthroned, lend- 
ing his beneficent aid in the fuller interpreta- 
tion of that Divine Revelation so long since 
graciously given, giving birth to the higher 
criticism, which in turn becomes the Spiritual 
Father of Christian Science, who is indeed 
the only spiritually begotten son of the true 
Spiritual Father. 

Here, then, is the real opportunity of the 
true King's Jester, and he may once more 
assume his shining hood and bells, causing 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



them to jingle once again, in answer to 
Tennyson's spiritual invocation. 

"Dear sinners all," man's life is not a jest, 
nor dream, shadow, bubble, air, nor vapor, at 
the best. Life is real, and well worth living 
to those who live it according to Good's own 
divine appointment. 

That men may laugh, women scream, and 
every staghound bay does not prove anything 
in particular, except that men, women and 
dogs are generally built that way. 

"Thou great first cause, least understood, 

Who all my sense confines to know but this — 

That Thou alone art good, 
And I myself am blind." 

But the true Christian is not so blind as in 
Pope's day; he is learning very fast, and the 
more he knows the more he grows into the 
perfect image. 

This conversation is intended to be a free- 
for-all. Yes, my friend, you are in it. This 
paper is everybody's paper, but it is chiefly 
intended for the benefit of the all-round, hust- 
ling amateur intellectual athlete, whether he 
be high-church, low-church, or no church. 

In assuming the responsibility of conduct- 
ing the conversation we find at the very outset 
that we are handicapped, being compelled to 
defend ourselves against the mean imputations 
of ancient tradition, who positively asserts 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



that we are a wild man, that the wind whistles 
through our whiskers, and that we are neither 
the original talker nor thinker, from way-back. 
However this may be, disregarding the acts 
of our ancient enemy, and taking counsel only 
of Love, who is the genuine "Holy Ghost" 
and the only true friend of humanity, we have 
resolved ourselves into a kind of Spiritual 
Pioneer Corps, whose duty it shall be, to ever 
march in front of the grand army of reform, 
removing carefully all obstructions from the 
old path, and, if possible to lead you out 
From the Shadows, over a route still higher, 
and more practical than the old one. Will 
you come with us, then, and help to survey 
the route? If you will, stand not upon the 
order of your coming, but come at once, "Get 
a move on you!" 

If any of the vital questions touched upon 
have not been sufficiently elaborated to estab- 
lish the views contended for, and the necessity 
of changes herein indicated, it is partly 
because the limits of this volume are insuffi- 
cient, but principally because human caution 
and human conservatism are always more 
fully developed than human judgment, while 
the spirit of negation, which is the common 
enemy of mankind, is content to be constantly 
scrapping with his betters. 



io FROM THE SHADOWS. 

If accused of having too freely appropriated 
the thoughts and language of another, in seek- 
ing a suitable wardrobe for ''our John Henry," 
it is upon the assumption that no man 
has a corner on Truth; that everybody, 
knows more than anybody; that we all desire 
the best; that the best is the cheapest, and 
that it is none too good for those who like it. 

Earnestly hoping that something herein 
suggested shall spring up, not many days 
hence, and bear fruit an hundred fold in the 
great paradise of God's eternal goodness, we 
beg leave to remain, 

Yours indefinitely, 

The Author. 



flntroJmctton, 



The following lectures are supposed to 
have been delivered in the presence of the 
members of the "West End Hypnotic 
Society/' of the City of Chicago, 111., during 
the evenings of the winter months of 1896, by 
Prof. Marques K. Dorine, a native of Drogio, 
a traveling hypnotist. 



LECTURE I. 



THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 



Let us now for a time swing gently around 
the magic circles of thought and imagination, 
and when you grow tired and must have a 
little rest, if you desire it, we will gladly leave 
you still at the foot of the old path. But if, 
upon the other hand, you prefer to journey 
with us, then we promise that you shall have 
clearer conceptions of the true God, and 
brighter visions of the Spirit Land than the 
stall-fed doctors of divinity in the past have 
ever been able to give you. 

They talk about the noontide of Christian- 
ity — the full blaze of the Gospel Sun — but 
where is the light? It has been daybreak 
a long while; the celestial band has been 
playing, but Christianity has not kept 
step to the music; the whole world has been 
under marching orders, but we have not been 
moving forward. Shall not God soon send 
another Moses, to lead His children out of the 
wilderness of human ignorance, and to bid the 
tyrant Ignorance let His children go to a 
happier and better state of existence? When 
shall the prison-house be opened, and the 
captives all go free? 

Some day we must pilot the world to 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 13 

happiness. Do you call it Heaven? It is all 
the same. 

Ten hundred millions of people in the 
world, and half of them happy. What a 
beautiful Heaven in the aggregate! More 
than half of them miserable! What a terri- 
ble Hell this must be! Do you make a jest of 
this? Be not deceived; God is not mocked. 

You say, "I am not going to either place; 
I do not desire to go anywhere at present. 
This place is good enough for me." 

But you are journeying all the same. Old 
age will soon overtake you, and he will bear 
you company all the way. Shall it be a 
happy journey, or will your life be miserable? 
There are three important stages in the jour- 
ney of human life. These are youth, man- 
hood and old age. In youth we stand at the 
foot of the journey, and are only too anxious, to 
pass hastily over and see what is on the other 
side. In manhood we have reached the half- 
way place, and now ocuppy the only vantage 
ground, for we can look both forward and 
backward. In the last stage we are nearing 
the end of the journey, and if faith does not 
light up our pathway beyond the grave, we 
can only look back with many sad regrets: 
"I have been young, now I am old," etc. 

Happiness is not so far away as we gener- 
ally suppose. Heaven is ever ready to em- 



14 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

brace us. The gulf of unhappiness is yawn- 
ing to receive us, and there is no escape, ex- 
cept we flee to the mountain of the Lord's 
house. If Happiness come not, we should go 
after him, seize hold of him, and wrestle with 
him as Jacob did with the angle, saying: "I 
will not let thee go except thou bless me." 

If the conditions which now surround you 
are happy ones, then you are in Heaven al- 
ready, and the question is, will you help con- 
tinue those conditions, that your happiness 
may be perpetual? 

"Life is the rugged road 
Leading to the bright abode 
Or dark perdition. 

Then choose the narrow way 
Which leads no traveler's foot astray 
From realms of love." 



OBSERVATIONS ON TALKING. 

We never give advice, Oh no! We do not 
even like those who do. Advice is too cheap 
you know; but sometimes it is worth a hundred 
cents to the dollar, and has been known to 
pay a handsome dividend to the stockholders. 

Not being competent to give advice our- 
selves, we commend that given by the Irish 
gentleman to his son, who was about to em- 
bark for America: "Young man," said he, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 15 

"you are about to embark for the new world 
to seek your fortune. I have no money and 
but little advice to give you. When you get 
to New York open your eyes and look about 
you. Seek, think, and say nothing, and if ye 
get a chance ye may eat, drink and pay 
nothing. Use your mind nimbly, work your 
tongue glibly, and if, within a twelve-month, 
ye don't find ye are a full-fledged statesman, 
with the American eagle screaming at your 
back, and ye well on your way to the White 
House, then just keep an itemized account of 
your expense, send the whole shootin' match 
to the old man, and he'll fut the bill. '' 

The application of this story is, that if you 
try faithfully to comprehend the meaning of 
these lectures, and don't succeed, you are to 
hold me strictly responsible, for the fault is all 
my own. 

We once heard a story of two men, who en- 
gaged in a talking match. The conditions of 
the contest were, that each was to begin talk- 
ing at a given signal, and the conversation 
was to continue until one or the other of the 
parties should acknowledge himself satisfied. 
An umpire was chosen and the signal was 
given, when one of the men immediately be- 
gan to repeat, in a loud and boisterous tone of 
voice, "I've got the start, I'll keep the start.'' 
This he continued to repeat so rapidly that 



16 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

the other poor fellow, becoming disgusted, 
gave up the contest in despair. 

Now, you tell me that nothing succeeds like 
success; but in this case success was a dismal 
failure. It is all well enough in talking to get 
a good start, and to keep it, but it is much better 
to have something important to say. It is cer- 
tain that a man should never utter vain knowl- 
edge, fill himself with east wind, nor argue 
with speeches, wherewith he can do no good. 
And it is also certain that not even a fool has 
the right to fill himself too full, with either 
sour-mash whisky or stale beer. 

It is no chestnut to say that everything runs 
into politics, or that man is a moral, social, 
and political being. Mr. Righter, of Ken- 
tucky, once said that he was introduced to a 
Biuegrass society belle, who had a great rep- 
utation as a conversationalist, and that, fear- 
ing he should not be able to acquit himself hon- 
orably, he conceived the idea of doing a little 
social bluffing, which he successfully accom- 
plished by immediately asking the young lady 
whether they should discuss religion, politics, 
or matrimony. This bold coup de tat of the 
gentleman knocked the fashionable young lady 
out, in the first round, for she at once com- 
prehended that the young man had a com- 
prehensive view of men and things, and that 
he was prepared to talk on any subject, for all 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 17 

there was in it. For the remainder of the 
conversation Mr. R. had things his own way 
for his beautiful intellectual scrapping com- 
panion became as clay in the hands of the 
potter, and immediately subsided into that 
most lovely of all female characters, a splen- 
did listener. 

What to say, when and how to say it, con- 
stitutes apples of gold, in pictures of silver; 
but what to do, when and how to do it, con- 
stitutes the back-ground to that more beauti- 
ful picture, which we call human happiness. 
Action is one of the most important words in 
the vocabulary, and it will alway bear repeti- 
tion and emphasis. 

What do we know, and what do we do, are 
questions which come to us all, and which' de- 
mand an imperative answer. To the first 
question, knowing our own ignorance, we>give 
it up, and desire something easier; but to the 
second we can make no answer, for, knowing 
our own unworthiness, conscience doth, in- 
deed, make cowards of us all. 



LECTURE II. 



FACTS AND FANCIES. 



Every man in this life, who is not a human 
sucker, is expected to give something back to 
the world, in return for what he already re- 
ceived; otherwise, he lies under the double 
imputation of being either a dead fly in the 
ointment, or, what is still worse, a consumer 
and no producer. Every man some time in 
his life, is expected to come to his burning 
bush. The burning bush is the tree of life, 
and the tree of life is the tree of wisdom. 
These two old trees of knowledge and life, as 
spoken of in the Old Testament scriptures, 
have always been a mystery, but they need 
remain a mystery no longer. 

A natural tree, like the tree of knowledge, 
is a beautiful thing to contemplate, with its 
stalwart trunk, its broad and spreading 
branches, its bright green leaves, its beautiful 
buds, and its sweet and delicious fruits; but a 
spiritual tree, like that of divine" wisdom, is a 
sublime and beautiful conception, whose roots 
are deeply imbedded in the Rock of Ages, 
whose leaves are for the healing of nations, 
and whose fruits are life eternal. 

Every man, at some time in his life, is ex- 
pected to become a moral, social and political 
Moses. If he accept the divine commission 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



willingly, he shall never want for grace to 
help in every time of need, mouth and wisdom 
shall be given him, to accomplish his mission, 
and every time he achieves a victory, either 
over himself or in behalf of a fallen brother, 
there shall not be wanting a noble-hearted, 
sweet- voiced Sister Miriam, to sing a song of 
praise, to celebrate the deliverance. 

Such a man shall realize that he is in the 
position of the Kansas emigrant, who found 
that he was sole owner of a four horse team, 
and the happy possessor of a little buff-colored 
canine, who trotted along complacently under 
the wagon. But if, upon the other hand, he 
should refuse to march with the Spiritual Pio- 
neer Corps; if he pefers to remain a fool; if, 
indeed, he shall presist in becoming a chronic 
kicker, then he shall certainly live to realize 
that the way of the transgressor is hard. 

When called upon to entertain our friends, 
we always realize that the best which the 
earth affords is never too good for them — that 
it is the cheapest, and that variety is, indeed, 
the spice of life. However, it is only by vir- 
tue of the grand doctrine of the universal 
fatherhood of Good, and the universal brother- 
hood of man, supplemented by that of the 
greatest good to the greatest number and the 
survival of the fittest, that we are permitted to 
assemble together, from time to time, in the 



2o FROM THE SHADOWS. 



capacity of family reunions. It is also by 
virtue of this grand doctrine that we are, some 
times, at least, permitted to assemble in the 
more congenial capacity, of an admiration 
society, upon the mutual plan. 

If such a society is now represented by these 
lectures, then but two things are necessary to 
make this meeting a blooming success: First, 
that you should continue to lend me your ears 
and bear as you can the transient twinge of 
pain; and. secondly, that we should certainly 
try to fill them up with something good, and 
to give them back to you again, within a 
reasonable time, and in reasonably good 
order. 

But upon occasions of this kind it is cus- 
tomary to have some refreshments; and now 
what shall it be? Shall we have an exclusive 
literary diet, composed wholly of the tradi- 
tional Boston baked beans? Or shall we draw 
upon Inspiration just a little bit — have some 
angel food, and then, by the way of variety, 
just a little nonsense which is said to be rel- 
ished by the best of men? 



MENTAL EVOLUTION, 



Many years ago, when we first came to this 
country, a poor, little, simple-minded, penni- 
less, bare-foot boy, without money enough to 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 21 

pay a week's board, and with no clothing to 
speak of, we gladly took up the burden of 
life, and have cheerfully borne it ever since. 
But way back, when we used to run foot-races 
with Bill and Tom, in the dusty road in front 
of the old chinquepin tree, and when our 
spirits were feather-light, we had often been 
made sad with the thought that we should 
soon be compelled to lie down and sleep the 
last sleep, in the very dust upon which we then 
trod so lightly. The universe, to our simple 
mind, at that time, extended no farther than 
the blue which skirted the surrounding tree- 
tops, But as we grew we expanded into a 
philosopher; we began to inquire into the 
whichness of things which we did not compre- 
hend. Having an eye to business, we looked 
carefully about us, taking in the whole situation 
at a glance, and we now rejoice to tell you that 
we have been able to discover a new-cut road 
From The Shadows to the Promised Land, run- 
ning on a line exactly parallel with the old 
one, but instead of running through the old 
Slough of Despond, it is built upon higher 
ground. It is an elevated road, and runs 
directly up to the top of the mountain of the 
Lord's house, by the King's highway of holi- 
ness. Electric light towers are stationed all 
along the way, and, where it is needed, little 
drop-lights are graciously interspersed, so that 



22 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

the weary traveler may at all times see his 
way, realizing that at every step he is getting 
out of the low ground of the wilderness of 
Ignorance, and passing up to Fairer Lands on 
High, passing through the Spirit Land, 
catching at every step beautiful glimpses of 
the Better World, to which he is fast hasten- 

in §- 

What is the spirit world? 

It is the world of vital principles, with which 
we are daily surrounded. But we anticipate, 
and lest you should follow our example too 
largely, we shall be compelled to ask you to 
exercise patience. 

Patience is a great virtue, and always assists 
us in flying the spiritual kite, the vivid imagi- 
nation, without the exercise of which, we may 
never hope to attain an altitude sufficiently 
high to see anything worth seeing. 

Every age is peculiar, in that the present 
one is always a little wiser, in its own conceit, 
than the one which immediately preceded it. 
Solomon thought he knew it all, in his day, 
else he never would have had the presump- 
tion to tell us, there is nothing new under the 
sun. But we know that Solomon made a 
mistake, for we have lived to see even his 
religion a back number, and almost buried in 
the tomb of human forgetfulness. 

The Jews were as tenacious of their religion 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 23 

as either the Mormons or Presbyterians now 
are of theirs. The war is now on between 
creeds and hetrodoxy. Between the two it is 
a right for life, and the survival of the fittest, 
and both of these sacred heathens will eventu- 
ally be compelled to go. Hetrodoxy (so 
called) now feebly voices the cry of Arnold 
Winkielried, saying, "Make way for Religious 
Liberty!" Not the wretched liberty of law- 
less license, but the liberty wherewith Christ 
has made us free. 



LECTURE III. 

PATHETIC VISIONS. 



It is a matter of great regret, that this is 
largely an age of shams and shallow pretenses, 
both in the church and out of it. Men do not 
always say exactly what they mean, nor do 
they always mean exactly what they say. 
Yet, we reckon not that former days were 
better than these, because human nature has, 
no doubt, ever been essentially the same in all 
ages; but, as compared with former ages, it 
would seem that we are peculiarly fast, fussy, 
and furious, facetious, fashionable, and 
foolish. 



24 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

This is pre-eminently an age of activity; we 
cannot remain at rest ourselves, without, at 
least, desiring to see activity in others, and, 
though it were no higher an exhibition of moral- 
ity than a street scrap, a dog fight, a chicken 
dispute, a church raffle, a ball game, a female 
bicycle tournament, a charity ball, or an agricul- 
tural horse trot, yet we seem to be pleased, and 
often highly delighted, with the performance. 
Everybody is not only trying to get there, 
but all desire to do so right away. The diffi- 
culty is, that we mistake our destination. 
We are seeking exclusively for riches, whereas 
we should seek only for happiness. 

Five hundred years ago the thought that a 
great Columbian Exposition would be held in 
Chicago in '93, must have been a very remote 
idea, for two very essential reasons: First, 
because at that time Columbus had not yet 
discovered America; and secondly, so far as is 
now generally known, nobody; at that remote 
period, had been quite able to discover 
Columbus. 

It is true, perhaps, that, when the earth 
was created, the lake front was made large 
enough to accommodate the Exposition; but 
it is also true, that since that time the site has 
been utterly ruined, by the avarice of the 
Central railroad company, and the endless 
cupidity of the Chicago real-estate dealers, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 25 

who have persistently sold off the lots, and 
built on the ground east of State street. 

"The Zenith City of the unsalted seas hath exalted herself." 

But the modern Babylon of the wicked 
West vaunteth herself of her mighty achieve- 
ments. Shall she stand in history as a per- 
petual monument of the mightiest republic? 
Or shall she go down to death, lashed away 
by the waves of an angry inland sea, in 
accordance with the Divine decree of the sur- 
vival of the fittest? 



A LARGE MAJORITY 



The president of the Limekiln club has 
already notified its membership that, if they 
would, at all times, get a good view of the 
cornfield, they must all stand up on top of the 
fence; and, catching the spirit of the inspira- 
tion, we say: "You are right, Brother Gard- 
ner, and we second the motion." Let us get 
up into higher and healthier spiritual altitudes; 
let us climb up to where we can realize that 
we are standing on the border-land, which 
separates the good, the beautiful, and the 
true from that which is low, mean, base, vile, 
and disreputable in our human natures, and 
our human dispositions; let us climb up to the 



26 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

top of the mountain of the Lord's house, for 
this, indeed, is our only suitable dwelling- 
place. 

Before these lectures are concluded, we 
expect to show you how to get there; but, for 
the present, you must be content to exercise 
your own imagination, while we continue our 
delightful occupation. If it is charged that 
there is too great a disposition to levity, and 
that these lectures are rather attenuated, we 
may remind you that the chaff and the wheat 
must necessarily grow together. In this world 
the good and bad are strangely commingled. 
The bitter and the sweet are nature's counter- 
parts. The law of opposites holds good 
throughout eternity. Variety is, indeed, the 
spice of life. There is no castle without the 
cotter's lowly habitation; no landed estate 
without a starving tenantry; no rich congre- 
gationed, high-salaried church organization 
without its complement of little, ragged, 
hungry, orphan children, making mud pies, 
and playing in the gutter. 

It does, indeed, take all kinds of people to 
make a world; but, in the language of Uncle 
Jake Haines, of Jersey county, "from some 
unaccountable reason, upon a full vote, and a 
fair count, the fools always seemed to have a 
'unanimous majority.'" When asked if "life 
was too short to hear a long story," the old 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 27 

gentlemen hesitated, smiled sweetly, and then 
said: "Well, I should snicker; but then," 
added he reflectively, "I suppose it depends a 
great deal on what kind of a story it is. and 
how much interest we have in the telling/' 

In this progressive age, story-telling has 
grown to be a fine art, so that now those men 
and women, too, for that matter, who always 
have an irrepressible desire to say something, 
and who never have anything important to 
say, had better take good advice, and never 
say it. But those who have dug down deeply, 
and discovered beautiful gems of thought, 
may now hasten to bring them up to the sur- 
face, polish them, place them in beautiful 
settings, and distribute them as souvenirs 
among their friends. 

The man who invented the remark, that 
"life is too short to hear a long story," was, 
no doubt, a poor story-teller himself, and as a 
professional, perhaps, a disgrace to his call- 
ing. It is certain, however, that the grand 
old story of the Cross has lost much of its 
original force and beauty, by being poorly 
told, and falling into the hands of a class of 
poor story-tellers generally. There are some 
ministers of the Gospel, who go out upon the 
spiritual war-path, like painted wooden 
Indians, armed, not with the Sword of the 
Lord, and of Gideon, but rather with paper 



28 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

tomahawks, and wooden scalping-knives; and 
to the world it is no wonder that they so 
often return from the chase with no sinners' 
scalps to grace their spiritual wampums. 



LECTURE IV. 



THE BIG THREE, 



There are three classes of professionals, who 
are mainly intrusted with the good health and 
morals of the community. These are the doc- 
tors, lawyers and preachers. That the doc- 
tors perform their duties reasonably well, is 
attested by the favorable sanitary condition. 
That the preachers perform their work less 
acceptably, is due either to a want of conse- 
cration upon their part, or to the natural dis- 
position of humanity to general cussedness; 
but we more than suspect that both of these 
circumstances are prime factors in producing 
the present unhappy conditions. With the 
lawyers the case is not so favorable. To get 
back at them, in their own language, we may 
say, there are no mitigating circumstances. 
The voice of the People is sometimes the 
voice of God, and the verdict is like that of 
the jury which sat in the case of the old lady's 
husband, who was drowned in the mill-pond: 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 29 

"Wade and found wanting.'' The wanting 
consists, principally, in that higher sense of 
honor, which is absolutely necessary for the 
perfect development of that triple combina- 
tion, known as the family, the church, and 
the state. 

Tradition has been unkind to these gentle- 
men, as well as to ourselves, intimating that 
immediately after the Dutch had captured 
Holland, they formed a combination with the 
Drink god, the Money god, the Millionaires, 
and the Magdalenes, to get up a corner on 
both society and politics, control the legisla- 
tion of the country, fill the judicial offices, rob 
the People of their liberties, and send all the 
inhabitants of the land, weeping and wailing, 
to the infernal demination bow-wows, or words 
to that effect. 

However, we scarcely think the case so ser- 
ious against the lawyers as Tradition would 
have us believe. It has lately been intimated 
that Tradition is given to exaggeration, and 
we shall never forget how he sought to traduce 
us at the beginning of these lectures. There 
is a great deal said about moral, social, and 
political sore spots, which lawyers delight to 
probe as bleeding wounds afresh, and that 
they never offer a poor sufferer but one 
alternative — that of either yielding up his 
money or his life. 



3 o FROM THE SHADOWS. 

But these people forget that there are cank- 
ers and excresences, constantly growing from 
the body politic, exuding their deadly poison, 
and which need to be incised by the sharp 
lancet of the law. Who so honorable as he 
who wields the political scalpel for the good of 
the nation? 

There is a great deal being said about the 
upper and nether mill-stones, 'twixt which the 
people are being continually ground to pow- 
der; but the discordant elements of human 
nature, left to rankle with the lawless license 
of its own unbridled passion, would grind 
society to powder much faster than the de- 
partments of a well established government. 
The legislative and judicial powers of the 
state are the mill-stones, assisted by the exec- 
utive, which must do the grinding, and, like 
the mills of the gods, they must grind sure, if 
slow. All we demand is, that the millers 
must be honest men, and that they shall not 
take too much toll for the grinding. 



CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM, 



The first created man was a fool, and here 
is where all the trouble began. If it be true 
that like begets like, with a few exceptions, 
then, as a rule, the race of fools has been in- 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 31 

creasing and multiplying in the world for 
many centuries, so that now, in the language 
of the politician, the woods are actually full of 
'em. There never was but one wise man in 
the world, and it is a matter of record that the 
fools killed him, more than eighteen hundred 
years ago. 

The first government had scarcely been in- 
augurated, and Adam invited to a seat in the 
Divine cabinet, when, by his foolishness, he 
played such fantastic tricks before high 
Heaven as made the angels weep. No won- 
der he was invited to tender his resignation, 
step down and out, and make room for the 
Better Man, who was soon to follow him. 
This old story, of the First and Second Adam, 
is believed to be the first full-paged illustra- 
tion of the grand doctrine of the survival of 
the fittest. Thus we see, that Civil Service 
rules were recommended, and adopted, very 
early in the history of the Divine government, 
and now the only wonder is, that modern 
Civil governments haven't been able to catch 
on, just a little bit. 

Some time after the Second Adam had 
been appointed to fill the vacancy, caused by 
the resignation of the First, like all faithful 
officers, he was promoted, becoming both 
Secretary of State and General Manager of 
the Divine government. In this double 



32 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

capacity, it is but proper to state, that He has 
proven himself an efficient officer, that He has 
given perfect satisfaction to His constituents, 
and that he bids fair to become His own -per- 
petual successor. He shall reign until He has 
put all enemies under His feet, at which time 
he shall deliver up the Kingdom of Good, and 
Good shall be all in all. 

Every child born into the world comes in 
directly through the golden gate of Love, and 
like the clown in the circus, he comes bound- 
ing in with a whoop and a hurrah, and always 
manages to tickle the audience, which is 
assembled to wait his coming. But we are 
more like the clown than the philosopher. 
The man with the cone-shaped hat, tattooed 
face, and striped pantaloons is always in great 
demand. We are more pleased with the 
foolish antics and funny faces of the clown, 
than edified by the real merits of the true 
performance. There seems to be a funny 
spot, located very near the exact geographical 
center of every human disposition, and to 
reach this spot, is one of the principal objects 
of human endeavor. We are always more 
disposed to laugh than to learn. It seems to 
come easier, and be more natural. It has 
well been said, that any dumb, long-eared 
animal can open his mouth and bray, but that 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 33 

it always takes a philosopher to understand 
and appreciate an argument. 

But there comes a time, in the life of every 
man, when he should cease to be a clown, and 
learn to be a philosopher. There must be a 
turning point, else man is no better than the 
beast that perishes. The spirit of the beast 
goes down; the spirit of the true man goes up 
to Good, who gave it. For us all, the gilded 
circus-tent of Folly must, some day, be torn 
down, and we be left standing upon the very 
spot where once the center-pole stood before. 
Looking out upon the vast universe, we catch 
our first ideas of Infinity, Divinity, and Eter- 
nity. On all sides is the distant horizon; 
above us are the clouds. Lifting our eyes 
above the clouds to the zenith, which seems 
so near, yet is so far, we would climb up to 
Heaven and to happiness. But we cannot, 
and we give up in despair. A spirit of loneli- 
ness comes over us, and, feeling the need 
of something which we do not possess, the 
yearning heart gives utterance to the first 
prayer which the soul has ever uttered. It is, 
' 'Father! Father! I am lost, lost!" And there 
is never any mistake about this conclusion. 
We are lost, lost in a terrible and degrading 
ignorance. 

The earth is our common mother, and we 



34 FROM THE SHADOWS. 



all recognize her as such; but this is under- 
stood in a material sense. 

"I love, and have some cause to love, the earth: 
She is my mother, she gave me birth; 
She is my kind purveyor, she gives me food; 
She is my father's creature, therefore good 
But what's a creature, Lord, compared with Thee? 
Or what's my mother, or my nurse, to me?" 

The Spiritual Father is what we are looking 
for, and we have found Him; but if we should 
introduce Him to you in His own proper 
name, and in His own proper person, we fear 
you would scarcely recognize Him. There- 
fore, lest you should be unprepared to receive 
Him, we will give you ample time to put on 
the wedding garment, hoping that you may 
be glad to receive Him, when He shall be 
properly introduced later on. 



LECTURE V. 

THE GOD OF GOODNESS. 

In the economy of nature, the fool seems to 
be but one step removed from the philosopher, 
and the crank appears to be the connecting 
link between them. This much-abused indi- 
vidual seems to be growing, and multiplying, 
by the very abuse which he receives. His un- 
pardonable sin consists in having the courage 
of his convictions. He is the only rare, and 
literal, human curiosity, who, unlike the other 
fellows, always squares his practice by his 
preaching. Jesus and Paul were both reck- 
oned cranks, in their day, and heartily de- 
spised by the multitude. The true crank is 
the salt of the earth, and the perpetual bob- 
bing up of new cranks, from time to time, as 
occasion requires it, seems to exercise a salut- 
ary influence upon the moral world. He is a 
kind of healthy microbe, that penetrates the 
blood, and revitalizes humanity. The crank 
is the agitator, who keeps the wheels of prog- 
ress in motion. His advanced ideas lubricate 
the heavy bearings of the universal machin- 
ery, and make the world run smoothly. 
Without the crank, things would come to a 
dead standstill, and there would be a sudden 



36 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

collapse. The deacon's one-horse shay would 
be nowhere. 

The people complain, that they are sorely 
afflicted, by this class of individuals, and, in 
doing so, they simply repeat the old language 
of the demons, ''Thou sons of God, why dost 
thou come to torment us before the time?'' 
Sometimes cranks are necessary evils, and 
sometimes — 

"Our sore afflictions, which seemingly from the ground arise, 
Are but celestial benedictions, or blessings in disguise." 

There are many living issues, which agitate 
the public mind; but they all have their origin 
in the difficulty which the people experience, 
in comprehending the nature of the true God. 
There are two gods, which the people daily 
worship. One is the God proper, so far, and 
only so far, as human nature is able to com- 
prehend Him, or to conceive of a higher spir- 
itual being. But so long as human knowledge 
is defective, we shall be compelled to draw 
largely upon the imagination, else we shall 
have no god fit to demand our homage. The 
god which we worship must not be the god of 
a diseased imagination. He must be the 
product of a healthy, vivid, and sanctified 
imagination, which is permeated with a holy 
desire to see only the true Good. The major- 
ity of men prefer to worship the Money god, 
or the god of Self; and so long as the golden 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 37 

calf has more virtue in their eyes than the 
true good of humanity, just so long will the 
Divine Father hide His features, for very 
shame, behind the dark and dreadful cloud, 
which has no silver lining. 

We have been looking through a glass 
darkly. It is now high time that we should 
see His Majesty face to face. If there had 
been too much superstition, in reference to 
the Jewish God, there has been altogether 
too much mystery attached to the God of 
Christianity. What sane man will say, that 
he who wrote the history of creation did not 
draw largely, if not exclusively, upon his 
imagination, for the statements therein con- 
tained? And who can truthfully say, that 
the imagination of John did not create the 
principal part of his Revelation ? He under- 
took to tell the world something which it did 
not know; things which he had seen, things 
which did then appear, and the things which 
should appear, in the "sweet by and by." He 
gave to the world a Revelation, as Moses gave 
us a creation, drawing largely upon his imagi- 
nation. But mankind did not, nor does not, 
understand it. Is it necessary to blindfold a 
man, that he may see? John's Revelation is 
a revelation concealed. What we now want is, 
a revelation revealed. When the heathen 
cried out, "Great is Diana, god of the Ephes- 



38 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

ians," Paul immediately put his hand to his 
mouth, and whispered to Timothy, "Tell the 
people, great is the mystery of godliness!" 
But as these old religious battlecries shall die 
away, we may tell you, in truthful confidence, 
that they shall be superseded by the more 
intelligent assertion, "Great is the God of 
Goodness!" 



A SCRAPPING MATCH. 



The most burning question is, that which 
grows out of the conflict between radical 
orthodoxy, on the one hand, and modern 
infidelity, upon the other. But there is an 
intelligent criticism — a new-born child of 
Reason — -which is not infidelity, and when, 
against this criticism, orthodoxy sways the 
headsman's ax, he makes a great mistake. 
If it be admitted, that human reason may 
move a little too fast, in her eager search for 
Truth, is it not possible that orthodoxy may 
make a fatal mistake, by refusing to move at 
all? The world "do move," and we must 
either join the procession, and march gladly 
with it to the Promised Land, or trail our 
banners in the dust, and be branded as 
kickers, and obstructionists. The same God 
who said to Moses, "Stand still this day, and 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 39 

see the salvation of the Lord," very soon 
spoke to him again, countermanding the 
order, and said, "Why stand ye here? Speak 
to the children of Israel, that they go forward" 

The creeds of Christianity — why "the 
creeds?" What a burlesque upon the Christi- 
anity of Christ! What a total disregard of 
His prayer, that the world should be united in 
His doctrine! 

We daily behold the spectacle of would- 
be Christian athletes, pitted against each other, 
in deadly conflict, over petty points of doctrine. 
These creed-scrapping fraternities are driving 
the world to infidelity. One says there is a 
red-hot, burning Hell: another says there is 
no Hell of that kind, and still another face- 
tiously remarks, ''The Hell there is noil" 
Sam and Bob are great scrappers. The first 
is a man of muscle; the second a man of 
brains. The first advocates his doctrines, 
with all the intensity of his southern fire- 
eating nature. He hits out straight from the 
shoulder, and because he occasionally draws 
a little Christian blood the people throw up 
their hats, and applaud vigorously; the contri- 
bution-box is passed around, and Sam gener- 
ally succeeds in getting the plum, if he 
does not quite succeed in taking the 
cake. The other representative advocate 
is a quiet gentleman; in fact, he is as mild 



4 o FROM THE SHADOWS. 

a mannered man as ever scuttled ship, or 
cut a throat. But he is never more de- 
lighted than when, in his eloquent way, he is 
called upon to show up the aesthetic beauties 
of modern infidelity, or infidelity -pure and 
simple. It is very hard to distinguish be- 
tween them. Each of these champions has 
had his second, and his army of sponge and 
bottle holders. Like Macduff, each has laid 
on unmercifully, and, like Orpheus C. Kerr's 
description of the dog-fight, the beligerants 
have "fit and fit and fit," until they have 
chawed each other all up. The end is not 
yet. But a long-suffering people are still 
hopeful. For the present, however, we will 
be compelled to let the creed-scrappers fight, 
only hoping they will ultimately succeed in 
destroying each other. The apostle Paul was, 
no doubt, looking for these fellows, when he 
said, ' 'Beware of dogs;" and John G. Saxe 
says, "The paragraph invites some little 
thought, as to its intent, among the best ex- 
positors. But then we find they all agree, 
that dogs meant men" This is, no doubt, 
the origin of the adage, that every dog has his 
day. This is certainly dog-day, for that class 
of creed-mongers, and doctrine-scrappers, who 
are ready to chaw each other all to pieces, in 
the absence of brotherly love. Let us hope 
that, when this unseemly warfare is over, and 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 41 

when the smoke of battle shall have cleared 
away, there shall not appear a single cloud in 
the spiritual horizon, and that the world will 
then be ready to receive the true Christ. 

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 

The frosty air, the flying light: 

The year is dying in the night. 
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die ; 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring out the false, ring in the true : 
Ring in the Christ, that is to be." 



LECTURE VI. 

SOO-CI-ETTA VS. THE CHURCH. 

The Agnostics say, "We do not know, we 
cannot believe, we have nothing upon which 
to ground an intelligent faith.'' Yet these 
same men pride themselves upon their intel- 
lectuality, What are their imaginations for? 
Whence comes the spirit of prophecy in man ? 
Is there no higher knowledge than we possess? 
And is it impossible to invoke it? How shall 
we advance in knowledge, except by flying the 
kite of the imagination, with its tail safely 
anchored to the throne of human reason? It 
is only by the exercise of those two faculties 
conjointly, that we are ever enabled to dis- 
cover any new truth at all. He who exercises 



42 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

either of these faculties, to the exclusion of 
the other, will never have but an imperfect 
understanding, either of himself, or the world 
about him. If the mind has no power of 
originating ideas — if it has no creative faculty 
— then the Bible and mental philosophy are 
both a delusion and a snare. 

Christ taught us a useful lesson, at the 
grave of the dead Lazarus. As he said, 
4 'Come forth," to the dead body, so we speak 
to the living intellect. But, addressing our 
language more especially to the imagination, 
we say, "Come forth, thou sluggish servant; 
create for me a new and ideal -world — the 
world of beauty, and the world of light." 

" Then we can dip into the future, 

Far as human eye can see , 

See the beauties of this world, 

And all the wonders that shall be." 

Then we shall be getting up into the top of 
the mountain of the Lord's house, and "don't 
you forget it." 

"No imagination, no man," will, some day, 
become a truism; and this is uttered in the 
spirit of prophecy. What we desire is always 
good enough for us. When we deserve better 
things, we will get them. But so long as we 
desire to patronize forensic exhibitions, given 
by religious charlatans, at the rate of two hun- 
dred dollars a night, just so long these exhibi- 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 43 

tions will continue. Of course, they come 
high; but the aristocracy of wealth and soo-ci- 
etta will have them — "What France admires 
is good enough for France.'' Soo-ci-etta is a 
great goddess. She can give Diana points on 
etiquette, flounces, furbelows, and poisoned 
arrows. 

The society devil is the meanest devil in the 
church. The society goddess, and the god of 
culture, have slipped down the belfry tower 
together, and taken peaceable possession of 
the house of God, while Piety hangs his head, 
for very shame, and sneaks humbly out at the 
back door. Somebody is evidently to blame 
for this state of affairs; but so long as these 
educated, college-bred, made-to-order, creed- 
begotten, would-be religious, social jumping- 
jacks, are alone considered eligible to teach 
the people, this disgraceful state of affairs will 
continue. So long as these high-toned, high- 
salaried pulpit pounders can laugh and grow 
fat, at the folly of others; so long as they can 
smile sweetly, to see the money come 
jingling in, just so long can they afford 
to give pulpit gymnastics, talk eloquently 
twice a week, and for the rest of the time have 
nothing to do but grunt, and be happy, just 
like little pet pigs in high clover; hence they 
are very much inclined to adopt the motto of 
the mountebank street-fakir, saying, "Let all 



44 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

enjoy themselves. Who wouldn't when they 
could? I would." Eat, drink, and be merry; 
pass the good cheer along, up one side and 
down the other, is one continuous round of 
pleasure. 

Every man, who desires to become a moral, 
social, and political philosopher, must first 
drink freely at the fountain of human knowl- 
edge; and more than this, he must then 
humble himself in the very dust, and there be 
willing to take copious and heavy draughts at 
the fountain of Divine Inspiration, which 
simply means, that he should fill his mind 
with good thoughts, his mouth with good 
words, his life with good actions, and his 
heart with humility. 

Inspiration is one of those words, which the 
modern clergy enshroud with mystery; but it 
is not such a mysterious word, after all. It is 
neither mountain nor mole-hill, but it is preg- 
nant with meaning, and its import may be 
either good or bad. If you tell me, that a 
■personal man-god speaks to me from Heaven, 
or from any other place, in a miraculous way, 
with an audible voice, telling me something 
which I did not know before, then I say, No I 
this is not Inspiration, nor no man has ever 
received such a communication, neither in our 
day, nor the days which have preceded us. 
But if you tell me, that there is a god-man 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 45 

within us, which speaks with a language to be 
understood, pointing us to higher and better 
things, then we say, Amen! Then, my 
friends, we are to understand, that we may 
receive inspirations- every day. If we lift our 
thoughts, and open our hearts, we will receive 
them, and in proportion as we exercise our 
minds, and strengthen and encourage our 
imaginations, just in that ratio we shall 
become inspired men and women. 



THE FOOL-KILLER A NECESSITY. 

Whether the Washington hatchet-story be 
true or untrue, we know that its good effects 
have not been lost to the world, for it has 
helped to emphasize the fact, that Truth is 
the grandest thing on earth, and in this case 
the principle contended for, is the chief thing, 
with which we are interested. Suppose we 
should say, Washington never gave his boy 
the hatchet, what difference would this make, 
as regards the vital question at issue? What 
difference does it make, to the true Christian, 
whether the whale swallowed Jonah or not? 
The lesson is a good one, and teaches, as it 
was intended to do, that there is no safety, 
except where duty calls. What difference 
does it make, to the true Christian, whether 
the seven stars, held in the hand of Him who 



46 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

gave the Revelation to John, were actual stars 
or not? And who can believe they were? Is 
there not more harmony in believing, that this 
was a beautiful figure, which John used to 
represent a fact? Yet we are told, by Christ- 
ian brethren, that we are not othodox. If 
orthodoxy requires that men should be fools, 
then why the necessity for a fool-killer, when 
fools seem to be in such great demand? 
Surely, his occupation, if orthodoxy have her 
way, will soon be gone. If the church would 
listen more to the language of Christ, and 
less to His apostles, (and especially to Paul, 
who was the greatest talker, and loudest 
enthusiast, and consequently more liable to 
err); if the church would do this, then more 
than half the wedges, used in splitting her 
asunder, could be consigned as waste material. 
The difficulty consists in the fact, that honest 
believers cannot divest themselves of the 
thought, that all religious teachers, mentioned 
in the Bible, were infallible; that being in- 
spired, in the sense in which they understand 
it, it became impossible for them to make a 
false statement. They were not gods, they 
were not ftofies, they were men. We are not 
of Paul, nor of Apollus, nor of Cephas, nor of 
John — we are of Christ. 

"We are trusting, Lord, in Thee, 
Blessed Lamb of Calvary. 
Humbly at Thy Cross we bow; 
Jesus saves us — saves us now." 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 47 

But how does He save us? And in what 
sense are we to understand salvation? We 
are saved, not by his death, as some people 
do vainly suppose, but by his life and example 
— though we pray until doomsday, and have 
faith that would remove mountains, yet we 
must act. Our lives and examples must 
exhibit overt acts, as an earnest of our pro- 
fessed faith, and after having come to the 
Savior, the order is reversed, and we must^. 
Here we receive the order of the campaign, 
and here the real battle of life commences. 
After receiving our equipments, we are to 
fight the battle of life alone, only looking to 
headquarters for further orders. After being 
able to sing — 

"Ain't I glad I am out of the wilderness," 

we must have courage to stay out. Seeing 
the cyclone approaching, we should seek the 
storm-cave. 



LECTURE VII. 

SPIRITUAL LONGING VS. FALSE KNOWLEDGE. 

Many years ago, when Job asked the all- 
important question, "What is man?" he set 
the whole world to thinking; and that is pre- 
cisely the object of these lectures, to stir up 
your minds, by way of remembrance, appeal- 
ing both to your hindsight and to your fore- 
sight, enabling you to draw upon your 
memory, for all the good which you have 
received in the past, to be thankful in your 
hearts for the present, and hopeful for the 
future, in order that your lives may be happy 
ones, and that, at the end of life's journey, 
you may enter into that inheritance, which is 
incorruptible, undefiled. and which fadeth 
not away. 

Do you say, this Promised Land business is 
all a fake? I beseech you, hear me 
patiently, for the end is not yet, and, sooner 
or later, we shall all be out of The Shadows. 

A few years ago, when a fool by the name 
of Flanigan got up in the national congress 
and said, "What are we here for?" he threw a 
terrible bomb-shell into the camp of his polit- 
ical friends. We may safely assume, that we 
are neither Jobs, fools; nor Flanigans. Yet 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 49 

we are demanding, (though in a more spirit- 
ual sense), with all the earnestness of our 
spiritual natures, the answer to Flanigan's 
once foolish question, "What are we here 
for?" What is the origin, nature, and destiny 
of man ? 

At this juncture, some facetious individual 
may rise up and say, "We are here because 
we can't get away." But this would scarcely 
be a proper answer to the question. It would 
never satisfy that nameless longing, and vague 
unrest, which takes possession of the human 
breast, for something better, and more defi- 
nite, than we have known. For, disguise it 
as we may, ' 'there is a divinity, which shapes 
our end." 

"Not long can nature satisfy the mind, 
Nor outward fancies feed its inner flame. 
We feel a growing want we cannot name, 

And long for something sweet, but undefined." 

But what is this sweet, undefinable, inde- 
finite something, for which we are constantly 
longing? The mystery of godliness would tell 
us, it is Heaven; but we shake off the mystery, 
as Paul shook off the deadly viper at Melitea, 
and tell you plainly, it is nothing but happiness. 
When we acquire perfect knowledge of our- 
selves, and of the true God, then this mystery 
will all vanish — the mists will be cleared away, 
and we shall see Him, and know Him, even 
as we are known. 



50 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

The human mind is a wonderfully formed 
stringed instrument. It is the original, and 
the only, harp of a thousand strings. It is 
self-adjusting, and has the capacity of always 
keeping itself properly atuned. If it does this, 
if we keep ourselves in harmony with nature, 
and the external things about us, we may, at 
all times hear the sweetest music. Otherwise, 
there is nothing but hideous inharmony, and 
hateful discord. But the soul is susceptible 
of a sweeter music than that which is the di- 
rect result of these external performers. That 
sweetest music, however, can only be heard 
when, of our free will, we invite the god-man 
within us to mount the music-stool, and with 
one grand, majestic sweep of His magic hand 
touch every chord of the human soul. Then 
it is we may hear the sweetest music; then it is 
we may have that peace and satisfaction of 
mind, which the world can never give nor 
take away; then it is our hearts are transported 
to ecstatic scenes of more than earthly joy. 

The mind is conscious of its own existence, 
but it is also painfully couscious of it own 
ignorance. Half the world is earnestly desir- 
ing to know something, but the other half is 
never quite able to tell them exactly what they 
want to know. So true is this, that we never 
meet our friends and ask them, ''What do 
you know?" but that they invariably say, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 51 

"We give it up; ask us something easy." It 
is true, there are some things which we do 
know, but it is also true, that there is an in- 
finite number of things which we do not know; 
so that, upon the whole, it may be truly said, 
that the sum of things which we do not know 
is infinitely greater than the sum of the things 
which we do know. It is true that, to some 
extent, the world is filled with knowledge. It 
has covered the earth, like a beautiful gar- 
ment; it has piled up mountain high. Exper- 
ience and observation have given us a great 
reservoir, so that, if we would desire to acquire 
it at second hands, we need only to insert an 
intellectual faucet, and draw off at will. But 
the difficulty experienced in such cases would 
be, that, it would not be all wool, nor a yard 
wide. 

There is a great deal oi false knowledge in 
the world. False knowledge bears a close 
resemblance to the genuine article; but it is 
like the contents of a tramp' *s baggage, which 
is put up for a night's lodging — though sup- 
posed to contain gold bricks, when it is opened 
up next morning, after the tramp is gone, it 
proves to contain nothing but ordinary burnt 
clay, done up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That a bird in the hand is worth two in the 
bush, is a species of false knowledge. It is 
prompted by a sinister motive. The man 



52 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

who invented it was avaricious. He wanted 
to kill the poor little bird to get the wings to 
sell for money. Those wings will be sold to 
adorn a Sunday hat, or a Sunday bonnet. 
Somebody will wear that hat or bonnet to church 
next Sunday; somebody will sing in the church 
choir; and somebody will be a great sinner. 
Under such circumstances, it might be proper 
to suggest that good old song— 

"Show pity, Lord, O Lord forgive; 
Let a rebellious sinner live." 

We once saw a young lady singing in the 
church choir, with two bird wings, arranged one 
on either side of her turban hat, and we re- 
flected, what a beautiful chei-ubim to the 
young lady's ark of the covenant! 

That honesty is good policy, is knonv- 
ledge\ but that it keeps a man poor, is false 
knowledge. No honest man is poor; he is the 
richest man on earth, and his heritage is sure. 
Besides this an honest man can never become 
a spiritual bankrupt. To trust, in the ordi- 
nary business sense, is to bust; to "bust" is un- 
happiness and unhappiness is H — 1. But 
when a man is busted morally, he is a blank 
nonentity, in a state of innocuous desuetude, 
and there is more hope of a fool than of him. 

If any person now desires to offer any crit i- 
cism, an opportunity will be given him to do 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 53 

so; but it is earnestly hoped, that the matter 
will be postponed, until after the close of 
these lectures. But if gentlemen persist in 
manifesting a disposition to ring mischievous 
little chestnut-bells, throughout the remain- 
der of the performance, we may as well tell 
them, that we have anticipated their move- 
ments, and that we have instructed noble- 
minded young lady hearers to climb way up 
into the belfry towers of their intellectual 
faculties, seize firmly hold of the bell-cords, 
and declare, in the original dramatic style — 

"Curfews shall not ring to-night." 

It has long been known, that the proper 
study of mankind is man; but not until quite 
recently has it been discovered, that the most 
perplexing one is that of woman. However, 
be this as it may, we know that woman must 
have her say. For when she will, she will, 
and we can depend upon it; but when she 
wont, she'll "see you later," (and the curfew 
rings). A boy's will is the '-'wind's will:" 
It may come easy, and as easily go, but it 
usually prompts the boy to come more than to 
go. A man' s will is as stern, inflexible, and 
invincible as the traditional military man on 
horseback. It rides boldly up to the castle- 
wall, and demands admittance. If this be 
refused, it hesitates not to make war on the 



54 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

fortifications, levels down the castle-wall, and 
rides boldly in, taking peaceable possession of 
the whole shooting-match. But a woman's 
will is ever capricious and varied, being some- 
times as gracious and condescending as a 
bright May morning, but at other times as 
positive and destructive as a Kansas or Dakota 
cyclone. 

In a great and good book, which we all re- 
vere, are found two injunctions — one that we 
should eat that alone which is good, and let 
our souls delight in fatness, and another which 
tells us, we should not be righteous over-muck, 
lest we should die before our time. It would 
seem that these injunctions are given one 
against the other, that some where between 
them we might find a kind of happy medium, 
and our own experience teaches us, that the 
happiest conditions of life are those in which 
we find existing a streak of lean and a streak 
oifat. 

The world and the church are now both de- 
manding new ideas. The world wants them, 
because she can readily convert them into 
cash, or the pleasure of sin for a season. The 
church wants them for a very different pur- 
pose — she is demanding new ideas, solely for 
the power which they confer upon her to 
comprehend the truth. But what the church 
most needs at this time is, sense enough to ap- 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 55 

preciate the truth, when she finds it, and 
honesty enough to practice what she preaches. 
There are many big ideas latel) advanced for 
our consideration; but the one which seems to 
be taking 'the lead is, the "Big Four" idea. 
Like all great things, it had its orgin in a very 
humble beginning. It began as low down as 
the negro minstrelsy. We can all remember 
when the Barlow, Wilson, Primrose & West 
combination was the acme of minstrel per- 
fection. The idea became ambitious, and 
made itself a name among the railroad sys- 
tems of the country. The great Three C.'s & 
St. L. R. R, is now one of most important 
carrying factors. Not satisfied with this pro- 
gress, however, the idea marched down to 
the wicked city of New York, and there 
intrenched itself in the hearts, and homes, of 
her great big four hundred society people, 
who are lording it over the rest of the fashion- 
able world, limited only by the exercise of 
their own sweet will, and the plethoric condi- 
tion of their very fat pocketbooks, their motto 
being, "No poor man need apply." 

But this brings us to a point which we very 
much desire to make, and this is that there 
is but one legitimate Big Four in the universe 
that it is composed of the infinite God, the 
finite Man, the beautiful Woman, and the 
infernal Devil. This reference to the big 



56 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

combination is made now that you may not 
forget it. Its distinctive features will be more 
fully set forth later on. 



LECTURE VIII 



THE BIG THREE. 



There are three important personages, who 
have lived and died, and who have left upon 
record their testimony, in reference to one 
very essential particular, and that is, in 
reference to the weakness of human nature. 
These personages are, St. Paul, Mrs. Part- 
ington and Aunt Ophelia. St. Paul has 
told us, that when we would do good, evil 
is ever present with us; Mrs. Partington has 
told us in a kind of sniffling tone, "We are 
all poor, weak creeters;" but dear old Aunt 
Ophelia rather caps the climax, when she 
throws up her hands deprecatingly, and says, 
"Oh, how shiftless! Oh, -how-shiftless!" 

While we are investigating the subject of 
human weakness, we desire to call your atten- 
tion to a very large world, and a very small 
man, who occupies the center of it. The 
large world was made for the small man. It 
is his. He is in possession of it now. But 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 57 

the poor, little, simple-minded fellow hasn't 
sense enough to realize the fact — consequently 
he is still wanting the earth. If it were pos- 
sible for a man to realize, that he owned the 
earth vcifee simple, do you suppose he would 
be satisfied? Tradition, as well as our own 
experience, says, No I For in that case he 
would certainly become selfish, and desire his 
neighbors to either put up a wire fence, or 
build a Chinese wali about it, to keep the 
other fellows out. However, it is a nice 
arrangement, by which the little man is placed 
on the inside of the big world. It is a nice 
thing to be on the inside of any combination. 
It always gives the fellow on the inside a 
chance to turn the crank, and make the other 
fellows on the outside dance to his music. 

Selfishness is one of the meanest devils on 
earth. He is said to be a full brother of 
Ignorance, and, upon careful examination of 
the record, we find they are twins. Ignorance 
was born first, but Selfishness played him a very 
close second, for when Ignorance was born, 
Selfishness was not only there, but, like Jacob 
the younger, laid hold upon his brother's heel, 
and has clung to him ever, since, like grim 
death to a sick American citizen of African 
descent, (or words to that effect). Ignorance 
is the original curse of the world. He is 
believed to be the spiritual inhale, who once 



58 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

swallowed Jonah, where, for three consecutive 
days and nights, he was literally between the 
devil and the deep blue sea. The old whale's 
mouth is as capacious now as in days of yore, 
and we all know the world is full of Jonahs. 

The Big Three, so far as history and the 
happiness of mankind are concerned, are, 
Ignorance, Knowledge, and Wisdom. Ignor- 
ance is weakness, weakness is sin, sin is death 
and death shall ultimately be the end of 
Ignorance, for death shall finally swallow 
Ignorance, worse than Ignorance swallowed 
Jonah. Knowledge is power; but it can only 
be worth anything to anybody when rightly 
applied. There is but one thing which can 
teach the proper application of Knowledge, 
and that is Wisdom, Ignorance is a beast, 
Knowledge is a man, but Widom is a beauty, 
the fairest among ten thousand, and the one 
altogether lovely. Knowledge is the great, 
ponderous locomotive engine, standing upon 
the human railway track, with all its compli- 
cated machinery ready for action, thrilling in 
every nerve, panting and eager to be off on 
the journey, and to reach her destination. 
Wisdom is the little, intelligent, expert en- 
gineer, who climbs nimbly up into the cranial 
cab-house, seizing hold of the lever of the 
human will, causing the human machine to 
move either forward or backward, but always 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 59 

deciding to send it in the proper direction, 
and to bring it to a happy destiny. 



THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 

As we have already intimated, Truth is the 
grandest old race-horse in the universe. He 
is believed to be the original and the only true 
thoroughbred. He is constantly surprising 
the boys, breaking the record, and winning 
first money in every race. There is but one 
thing on earth which can run as fast as Truth, 
for a short distance, and that is the old dark 
horse, which people usually denominate a 
"Lie." As a race horse, however, he is not a 
success. He is not built that way. He is 
knock-kneed, spavined, and blind in both 
eyes. Besides this, he is thick-winded, and 
has no bottom. In the race of life he starts 
out briskly, and runs at a rattling pace to the 
first quarter-pole, but by that time he is 
usually blowed, and out of the race. But 
Truth has great staying qualities, and, pass- 
ing on swiftly around the course, we see him 
coming in grandly on the home-stretch, 
winning the race in front of the judge's stand. 
He gets there every time. But looking back 
over the course, we see the old dark horse 
come plodding slowly up the back-stretch, and 



Go FROM THE SHADOWS. 

± 

we can see, with half an eye, that he is in the 
position of the man who went to see the queen 
married — he is going to get there just in time 
to be too late; for as he approaches the dis- 
tance-flag it is flaunted gaily in his face. 
Does it make him sick? Well, we should 
remark, that the old horse feels somewhat dis- 
couraged, and his backers usually feel worse 
than he does; but as misery loves company, 
they all go off to their own place, and when 
they get there the backers do the next best 
thing, that is, they kick themselves over the 
back-yard fence, and then immediately retire 
to the dark and dismal shades of the late 
lamented McGinty. 

Truth is not only a great race-horse, but he 
is also a grand old weaver, not like the origi- 
nal William, who was said to have been a gay 
deceiver, but a genuine weaver of whole cloth. 
The name of the cloth which Truth weaves is 
Faith, and it is made up into many beautiful 
wedding garments. Each of these garments 
has seven distinct and beautiful colors, like 
those which appear upon Joseph's coat. The 
names of these colors are the names of the 
Christian graces, and Christain graces are 
like sweet-smelling perfumes — the more they 
are utilized the sweeter they smell, and the 
more perfect becomes our outward adornment. 

There are four classes of persons who are 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 61 

clothed with these wedding garments. They 
are, the Prince, the Poet, the Puritan, and 
the Pioneer. When the Prince is clothed in 
his wedding garment, he says, "The just 
shall live by Faith." The Poet says, "Truth, 
crushed to earth, shall rise again." The 
Puritan says, ' 'Trust in God, my boys, and 
keep your powder dry,'' while the sturdy old 
Pioneer simply says, "Be sure you're right, 
boys, and then go ahead. " 

We are all little Adams and Eves, and to 
every child born into the world it is as fresh 
and sweet and fair as it was in the original 
Eden. No wonder men have never been able 
to find the exact locality of "that garden." 
The language is figurative, and is a descrip- 
tion of a condition, rather than a locality. 
We have always cursed the original parents 
for eating forbidden fruit, and thereby bring- 
ing sin into the world — as if there were no 
forbidden fruit in our day. We never curse 
ourselves, yet we have our forbidden fruit, 
and we eat it, smack our lips, and gulp it down 
as complacently as they did. Consistency is 
a jewel, but the present generation ought to 
confess to not having enough of this needful 
commodity to adorn a lady's finger-ring. In 
eating forbidden fruit it makes us sick, and 
when the Great Physician comes, graciously 
prescribing a remedy, we utterly refuse to take 



62 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

our medicine; and this simply shows what 
foolish and disobedient children we are. 

Now, as a rule, we do not believe in being 
harsh with children; but in cases of this kind, 
where discipline must be enforced, and where 
the maternal slipper is not available, it would 
seem that something must be done, and that 
the most efficacious means would be either 
the vigorous application of the paternal boot 
— that of a Bogardus kicker, or a two thous- 
and pound dynamo. 

The earth was no doubt, originally intended 
for a magnificent spiritual flower garden; but 
it has been sadly misappropriated. It was 
intended that the human race should live in 
perpetual happiness, enjoying sweet inter- 
course with each other, and with the Infinite 
Good. They were to cultivate the earth, to 
be sure; but this was to be a labor of love, 
and in return for that kind attention; so lov- 
ingly bestowed, nature was to yield up her 
fruits and flowers, gladly contributing to the 
necessities and happiness of man. But in 
addition to this material department, as a 
physical food-supplier, there was of necessity 
joined that more subtle attachment of the 
Divine mechanism, which would tend to a 
higher and better development. 



LECTURE IX. 

THE SPIRITUAL FLOWER GARDEN. 

Upon receiving possession of the heritage, 
the human family, instead of getting down to 
business, and attending strictly to their legiti- 
mate vocation, became dissatisfied. Instead 
of cultivating their minds, which was, indeed, 
the true flower garden, upon which they were 
to bestow most painstaking labor, they gave 
way to sensuality. We do not make that 
radical distinction between Earth and Heaven 
which very pious people are wont to do, for 
the very reason that we cannot, consistently 
with our understanding of the Divine nature, 
and without doing violence to our sense of 
truth, and the eternal fitness of things. If it 
is conceded, as it must be, that man has both 
a physical and a spiritual nature, and that 
both must develop, grow, and prosper, must 
it not also be conceded, that the habitation of 
this dual nature requires both a little Earth 
and a little Heaven for its greatest prosperity? 
We scout the idea, that this present habita- 
tion is all Earth and no Heaven. If we really 
believed this, as Paul says, "We of all men 
would be most miserable," and we should cer- 
tainly seek a passage to the Setter Country, 
by the morphine route, as soon as we should 
be able to interview a prescription clerk. 



64 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

Posterity has persistently followed the 
example of their ancestors, in obeying the 
injunction to multiply and increase, until it is 
high time that ancient order should be coun- 
termanded. This commandment, in reference 
to reproduction, is the only one which has 
ever been literally fulfilled, thus showing that 
it is much easier to obey a -physical law than 
a spiritual one. It goes without saying, that 
in proportion as we cease to be carnal, and 
learn to become spiritual, we shall become 
happier and better. If we become good 
children, we delight to go out and commune 
with nature, face to face, where she takes us 
gently by the hand, leading us through her 
labyrinths of grandeur and beauty, until at 
last, if we grow tired, we may fall sweetly to 
sleep in our mother's arms. Waking again in 
the morning, we feel refreshed and strength- 
ened, then we can either pursue our journey 
forever rejoicing, or calmly sit down under the 
shadow of the Sun of Good with great delight, 
and His fruits shall become sweet to our taste. 

Diligence, in the cultivation of our spiritual 
flower garden, will at all times give us grand 
and beautiful bouquets, which, upon great 
national festival occasions, we may lay down 
gratefully upon the altar of our country, or, 
what is still better, we may present them as 
waive, peace, or thank offerings before the 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



Lord, when — if they be offered in Faith — 
Love, which is the fire from Heaven, shall 
come down to consume them, and thus sweet 
incense shall ever ascend to bless the Giver of 
all good. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

When Life, who is the great father of us 
all, had determined to create a world of 
animated existence, he called into his council 
the undying principles of Wisdom and Love, 
and together these three absolutely essential 
elements in nature not only proceeded to 
create man, reflecting the image of their own 
glory, but also, in pursuance of that Divine 
plan, continued to develop the beautiful form 
of lovely woman. 

"For when the evening sun was low, 
To sleep old Adam he did go. 
But when next morning he arose, 
Not stopping to put on his clothes, 
And opening up his dreamy eyes, 
He saw an angel in disguise. 
For sweet on Adam, Eva smiled, 
And poor old Adam's heart beguiled. 
She took him to the garden-gate, 
Gave him apples, and he ate-" 

But ever since that time the question has 
been seriously agitated, "Is marriage a fail- 
ure?" This question is closely related to 



66 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

that other foolish one, "Is life worth liv- 
ing?" And as a fool is always supposed to be 
answered according to folly, we may say, in 
answer to the last question, that it depends 
very much upon the conditions and disposition 
of the liver. But as to the original question, 
"Is marriage a failure?'' the answer is 'not so 
easy. The question of marriage largely in- 
volves a matter of faith, and faith is always a 
dim road, where we are often compelled to 
take a leap in the dark. To our mind the 
question of marriage has always presented a 
kind of social jumping-jack — the more we have 
held it up to view, and manipulated it in all 
its mental phases, the more we have become 
confused in reference to the matter, so that we 
can scarcely tell exactly what kind of an animal 
it is. If based upon Love, is is a Divine insti- 
tution; if upon Money, it is a hoo-doo. 

"Cursed be the laws which sin against the strength of youth ; 
Cursed be the lies which warp us from a living truth. 
Cursed be the man who errs from honest nature's rule, 
And cursed be the gold which guilds the straightened for- 
head of the fool. 

Tradition and common sense both tell us, 
that there are three classes of persons who 
never should marry at all. These are, strong- 
minded women, who wear their hair cut short, 
weak-minded men, who wear long hair, and 
foolish, fashionable, and giddy young maid- 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 67 

ens, who invariably faint at the sight of a 
cow. But to men and women of sense, who 
have the necessary moral and physical qual- 
ifications, it is believed that marriage offers 
the only conditions in which, under all the 
circumstances of life — 

" "Love takes up the glass of time, 
And turns it in his glowing hands, 
When every moment, lighty shaken, 
Runs itself in golden sands. 

As to when people should marry, is also a 
mooted question, but it is generally conceded, 
that when Barkis is willin', and when Mary 
And (for that is usually the girl's name) has 
given her consent, is the happy possessor of 
a pug dog, a piano, and a cow, and when the 
father and mother have been properly inter- 
viewed, and are ready to say, in the conven- 
tional style, "Bless ye now, my children," 
then the moment seems to be auspicious. It 
is always a good time to make hay while the 
sun shines, and under these circumstances we 
should remark, that the sun is shining very 
brightly. But it sometimes happens, in the 
course of human events, that true love does 
not run smoothly. In cases of this kind it 
becomes necessary for Barkis to exercise a 
little strategy. This he usually does in very 
good style, by instructing Jehu to stop the 
carriage just outside the garden-wall, in the 



68 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

early twilight, where Dulcina, who has been 
placed on the inside of the combination, 
makes her appearance, is lifted gently into 
the waiting vehicle, and hied to the nearest 
parsonage. But what is their surprise, upon 
reaching the destination, to find that the an- 
xious parent has anticipated their movements, 
and is anxiously waiting to give Barkis a warm 
reception with the family shotgun. Now, in 
cases of this kind, we are sure our friends will 
agree with us, that marriage is a failure. 

i( As the husband is, the wife is; 

If she is mated to a clown, 
The grossness of his nature 

Will have weight to draw her down." 

"Love in a cottage cosily may dwell, 
But much prefers to have it furnished well. 
Love, though reckoned water-proof, 
Is sometimes drowned by a leaky roof. 

But when, in the course of human events, 
it becomes necessary, that the married wo- 
man should prove herself the best man of the 
tivo, then, indeed, a decent regard for the 
opinions of mankind would seem to dictate, 
that she should immediately declare the 
causes which impelled her to assume the 
wearing of the pantaloons, (or words to that 
effect. ) Tradition has kindly left a motto, 
and a word of consolation to our antiquated 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 69 



maiden aunts. The motto is, "Hope on, 
hope ever, hope even against hope;" and the 
consolation is — 

"There was never a goose so gray, 
But that some foolish gander came that way, 
And took her for his mate." 



LECTURE X. 



SOCIAL AND MORAL OBSERVATIONS. 

We are social as well as political and moral 
beings, and even now, in our minds, we can 
see come trooping in, our fathers and our 
sisters, our mothers and our brothers, our 
uncles, and our cousins, and our aunts. 

"But what to us were life, 
Without the busy wife, 
Who hustles us around » 

So lively, with her broom?" 

Once upon a time, a learned judge who 
graced the bench, in speaking of society, gave 
these three classes: women, men and French. 

And yet another, who was both a poet and 
a lawyer — we mean the learned and witty 
John G. Saxe — whilst hewing out a -poem 
entitled, "The Money King," with his poetic 
ax — 



70 FROM THE SHADOWS. 



He classified the lot, 

Into those who have money, 

And those who have not. 

Society is composed of classes, 

And they are numerous as mountain passes. 

By society, we understand 

The various relations of mankind 

To his fellow man. 

The first class we call Aristocracy, 
Differing somewhat from true Democracy, 
In that 'tis^composed of fools we can't endure. 
To this class, therefore, we demur. 

The next is Democracy, or society where 

All of equal weight and importance are, 

What though a man be poor, and his face be like the tan, 

If he have true principles, what's the matter with the man. 

Man's a fool at twenty-one; 

His stormy life is just begun. 

He lives too fast: the years pass swiftly on, 

And the first episode of life is done. 

At twenty-eight, the mind and body are full grown : 
He resolves to marry — 'tis not good to be alone. 

He applies at once, without offense, to Miss — Jones, 
And she consents, and soon becomes 
Flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones. 

But is it so? 

Do they through life in unison go? 

For a time, indeed, they live happily together withal : 
But so soon as the "Children beginneth to squall," 
Love jumps out of the house, through a hole in the wall- 
Not bound together henceforth by love, but by force, 
Loudly they call on the law, for divorce. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 71 

Then come courts, lawyers, lawyer's fees, 
acrimony and alimony, together with an 
unseemly scramble for worldly goods. In this 
race for social freedom the devil usually 
catches the hindmost, and his name is Dennis, 
(and the children,) for in the end, some other 
fellow is sure to get the divorced wife and the 
alimony. 

Every man, in his nature and disposition, 
is either a sky-lark or a night-owl. If a sky- 
lark, he soars and sings, and the higher he 
soars the sweeter he sings, and the more he 
praises his Maker. But if nature has destined 
him to be a night-owl, he must be content to 
go forever groping his way blindly through the 
dark, or, escaping this terrible degradation, 
he at best can but seek a refuge in some 
lonely, deserted, and ruined tower, and there 
he must remain, until the edifice shall crumble 
into dust, when he, too, shall be covered 
with the dust of the falling debris, and buried 
forever out of sight in the fallen ruins. 

We are but human hogs, gathering fruit 
under the Divine plum-tree, never looking up 
to see from whom these blessing come; and 
Alice Carey has aptly descriped the situation, 
when she says — 



72 FROM THE SHADOWS. 



"They are most unworthy 

The bountiful provisions of God's care, 
Who never look up with all the heart, 

And say, "How good, my Father, 
Oh, how good Thou art.' " 



FOOLS, CRANKS, AND PHILOSOPHERS. 

But we are political, as well social and 
moral beings. The old trees of Liberty and 
Protection were either born or engrafted upon 
our shores; but of late years those trees are 
beginning to show signs of premature decay 
and the fruit itself is getting a little bit 
tvormy. Who is it, that is now standing at 
the lookout, in the grand pilot-house of the 
old Ship of State? Is it the true spirit of 
personal liberty, or is it the wretched and 
degrading spirit of lawless license? What is 
the true policy of free America? Is it that of 
the greatest good to the greatest number? 
Or is it the petty policy of the professional 
politician, which says, "The people be d-d?" 

Disease affects nations, as well as individ- 
uals. There are now many indications which 
point to the fact, that Uncle Sam's health is 
slightly impaired. It would now seem nec- 
essary for the well-being of his numerous 
family that the old gentleman should brace up 
a little. It may become necessary that he 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 73 

should either take a tonic, or turn his face to 
the wall and pray fervently, as Hezekiah did, 
that he may have another fifteen years added 
to his political life. I am aware, that we 
should all be sorry to hear of the old man's 
death; but oh my! wouldn't it make a splen- 
did funeral procession! 

There are three classes of citizens who 
demand more than a passing notice. These 
are, the fools, the cranks, and the philoso- 
phers. The fool is a kind of an oyster-man 
— that is to say, he is all mouth, and no 
brains. He is a human sucker, a consumer 
and no producer, content to absorb what good 
he can from the world about him, without 
ever giving anything in return. The crank is 
a man of somewhat higher character. He is 
a man of, at least, one idea, but that idea is 
usually the bane of his life, and of every life 
with which he comes in contact. He will 
argue with his neighbor, from early morn till 
dewy eve, to prove the necessity of carrying 
coal to Newcastle, (or words to that effect. ) 
But when at last the evening shades appear, 
and the little stars come out and begin to 
blink at him, he will take the hint, thinking, 
perhaps, they are trying to make fun of him, 
so that, like the Arab, he folds his tent and 
silently steals away, leaving the world to 
darkness, and the sensible man to his own 



74 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

reflections. But Tradition, who always sleeps 
with one eye open, says, that the crank 
universally bobs up serenely next morning, 
before breakfast, ready and willing to renew 
the conflict. 

The philosopher needs no description at 
our hands. We are all, to some extent, 
philosophers ourselves — at least, in our minds. 
The true philosopher is the legitimate spiritual 
prophet, filled with inspiration, and gifted 
with second-sight. Fie can look away down 
the stream of time, behold either the old ship 
of church, or state, grandly sailing; tell 
exactly in what latitude she is, what the 
probabilities are that she will come safely into 
port, how much ballast she carries, how the 
ship is manned, and when and where she is 
going to land; or, if there be breakers ahead, 
he can order out the signal lights, and woe 
be to the unhappy mariner, be he man, 
church, or state, who refuses to heed them. 

Philosophers are generally bald-headed, 
and the world now owes a debt of gratitude 
to bald-headed men. Most of them have lost 
their sclap-locks in honorable brain-work 
skirmishes, dedicated, almost exclusively, to 
the benefit of their fellows and of their 
country. In all my experience, I have never 
seen but one bald-headed fool, and he was in 
great demand as a natural curiosity. 



LECTURE XI. 

COFFEE-COOLERS AND BLOCK-VOTERS. 

The world has given us two specimens of 
the gentleman. One is simply a gentle man, 
who loves to do right, and who does it. The 
other is usually a sporting man, and justly 
reckoned a very good judge of very bad 
whisky; what he thinks he knows, would make 
a library. But the coffee-cooler — what's the 
matter with him? He's all right. He stands 
as an honorable landmark between the old 
and the new — between the false and the true. 
He is the product of a more perfect moral, 
social, and political development, and a living 
monument of the promotion and perpetuation 
of a higher and more perfect Christian 
civilization. 

It has been intimated, that many men 
were induced to join the army under the 
immediate pressure of a military draft, and 
the remote possibility of some day obtain- 
ing an eight-dollar pension, in case they should 
have their heads shot off. It is but just to 
say, that the confidence which Uncle Sam 
reposed in them was never betrayed. Never 
at any time, during their country's darkest 
hours, did the great black camp-kettle, filled 
with steaming-hot coffee, make an impetuous 
charge upon them, that they were not ready 



76 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

and more than willing to repel that charge 
with their bright shining little tin cups, and 
when, under such circumstances, they met 
the enemy, truth not only compels us to say, 
that he was theirs, but that they were also, 
as ever, Uncle Sam's truly. 

But it is chiefly as a real-estate dealer, that 
the coffee-cooler looms up conspicuously in 
the history of the country. So great was the 
confidence reposed in him at the close of the 
war, that Uncle Sam made him a very advan- 
tageous proposition, to embark with him in 
the real-estate business, in Western Kansas 
and Nebraska. He proposed to bet them one 
hundred and sixty acres of land, against four- 
teen dollars in money, that none of them 
could live for five years consecutively on the 
land, without starving to death. We do 
not say, that Uncle Sam ivon the bet, but we 
do think, that the record will show that, in 
most cases, he now has both the land and the 
money. Bret Harte talks about the native 
cuteness of the heathen Chinee; but we think 
that in a matched game, Uncle Sam would 
give him a very close tussle. If they were 
engaged in a game of baseball, and each were 
trying to make a home run, the old man 
would be away out of sight. U. S. would get 
there, before the heathen could get his 
wooden shoes off. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 77 

This extended notice of real-estate trans- 
action is given for the benefit of tenderfoot 
coolers, who have never, like ourselves, bitten 
off more than they could chew. We some- 
times think it would have been better for us 
had we been born black. In that case we 
might, some day, live to realize possession of 
that traditional forty acres of land, and a 
mule. 

This is a great country, 

That's beyond a doubt; 

And Decoration Day, and July Fourth, 

We always let the secret out. 

This is a great country, especially on 
election day, when votes are selling as high as 
two hundred cents apiece. The most profit- 
able way to manipulate votes is in blocks. A 
block consists of five votes. The man who 
arranges the blocks is a political hustler, but 
the fellows who do the voting, under such 
circumstances, are political block-heads. 



SOCIAL MONSTROSITIES, 



Uncle Sam is not only a hustler, but is also 
a rustler, and combines the happy faculty of 
uniting business with pleasure. A great many 
years ago, when he established the military 
academy at West Point, he conceived the 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



double purpose of creating officers for the 
army, and also at the same time furnishing 
eligible husbands for ambitious young ladies. 

It is a grand sight, on graduation day, to 
see a group of young ladies surround a poor, 
helpless, defenseless cadet, while one of their 
number carries him off into captivity. But, 
after all, the young man is not so much to 
blame. What educated gentleman would not 
prefer being the husband of a beautiful young 
lady, to going away out into the wild and 
woolly west, fighting Digger Indians and 
eating grasshoppers. 

No man desires to be thought a fool. Call 
a man a fool, and you lose his friendship 
forever. Dare to intimate that a lady is not 
intelligent, and the offense would be but little 
less than were you to say she is not beautiful, 
and this, indeed, would be an unpardonable 
sin. Flattery, like music, has power to soothe 
the savage mind; but egotism is, perhaps, the 
most prominent bump on the cranium-map of 
human nature. It is the Pike's Peak of the 
surrounding faculties, standing out alone, 
rather grand and gloomy, but always peculiar. 
It casts a dark and dismal shadow over the 
social landscape, where the altitude is alto- 
gether too high and the temperature too low 
to vegetate anything delightful and pleasing. 

Some of us at times, when in a condescend- 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 79 

ing mood, might be willing to admit, that 
there is possibly a fool somewhere in the 
family, but of course, it would never be our- 
selves; it would always happen to be the 
other fellow. 

A few years ago, when Peck discovered the 
original Bad Boy up at Milwaukee, he thought 
he had struck a bonanza. Fond fathers freely 
bought copies of the book for their hopefuls 
to read, and the story of Bad Boy, for awhile, 
became quite a fashionable pastime in some 
of the best regulated families. But the 
misguided old duffers soon found they had 
made the mistake of a life time. They had 
reckoned without the host, and had bitten off 
more than they could comfortably masticate; 
for the Bad Boy increased so fast that there 
soon became a glut in the market. Instead of 
becoming a kind of pet natural curiosity, he 
soon began to be reckoned an infernal, inhu- 
man monstrosity. Now the burning question 
with the fond parent is, "How shall I dispose 
of my surplus stock on hand, and prevent its 
further increase?" 

The stock is freely offered in the open 
market, but there are no takers, and this 
accounts for the fact, that the Bad Boy and 
the Billy Goat have been forced to form an 
exclusive social combination, by means of 
which, in the absence of anything better, one 



8o FROM THE SHADOWS. 



is permitted to march with stately tread to the 
sausage-mill, and the other forever daily 
doomed to pass, slowly and sadly, upon the 
road which leads over the hill to the poor- 
house. 

Much as we deprecate the existence of the 
Bad Boy, there are many mitigating circum- 
stances. Bad boys are only the legitimate 
results of the bad example of bad men; one is 
the antecedent, the other the consequent. 
Abolish the bad man, and the bad boy will 
either evaporate into social air, or develop into 
a perfect manhood. 

But the latest fad is, the amateur young 
lady whistler. We once had the extreme dis- 
pleasure of witnessing a performance of this 
kind, and truth compels us to say that when 
the young lady was preparing to pucker her 
beautiful mouth, preparatory to giving the 
opening overture, we were deeply and 
solemnly impressed with the idea, that there 
was about to be altogether too much sweet- 
ness wasted on the desert air. We are 
opposed to such exhibitions, on the ground of 
economy. It is too great a waste of raw 
material. In the main, we are partial to 
women's rights. We believe in giving them 
the greatest personal liberty. Let them enter 
into intellectual scrapping matches with us as 
much as they like, but let them not think, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 



because reciprocity has given us free sugar, 
that it is not still incumbent upon them to 
teach economy. Young ladies, for heaven's 
sake, let us admonish you, as you prize your 
own happiness, and the happiness of those you 
love, never be tempted to pucker your beauti- 
ful mouths, unless it should be under a strong 
provocation to kiss somebody, and even then, 
perhaps, this temptation itself should be an 
economical one, and the kiss well admin- 
istered. 



LECTURE XII. 

SHOOTING FOLLY AT LONG RANGE. 

Wisdom is the great fool-killer, and if he 
should come down to earth in bodily form; 
marching boldly among us, with his sword of 
the spirit, many of us would, no doubt, 
become frightened, though it is doubtful if we 
could all be made to believe, that we are 
exactly the kind of people he is looking for. 
If he should call upon us at our homes, politely 
sending up his card, and requesting an inter- 
view, many of us would, no doubt, send down 
our excuses as not being at home. If he 
should be importunate, we would put him off 
to a more convenient season. VVe do not 
realize that it is necessary for our own good, 



8z FROM THE SHADOWS. 

that we should fall into his hands; that we 
should become as clay in the hands of the 
potter; that we should be all broken up, 
before we can be fashioned anew, and made 
into perfect beings. In human nature, hind- 
sight is always better than foresight. This 
accounts for the reason that Bellamy could 
write his book, ''Looking Backward." It is 
also a wise provision in nature. Were it 
otherwise, we would all be enabled to take 
our little amateur spiritual shotguns, and 
shoot folly as it flies, at long range; and since 
folly is the principal thing we feed upon; and 
is not protected by the game laws it would 
soon become an extinct species, and many of 
us would, no doubt, be left in a starving con- 
dition. 

The beautiful custom of painting towns red 
originated west of the Mississippi river. In 
the eastern States, and the Mississippi valley, 
an ordinary hustler is supposed to be good 
enough for all practical purposes; but it might 
as well now be understood, once for all, that 
west of the Missouri river no ordinary hustl- 
ing tenderfoot ever goes. So soon as he 
reaches the sacred precincts of the wolly west, 
he is immediately transformed into the fully- 
grown, rugged Rocky Mountain rustler. It is 
a grand sight to see a lot of these irresponsible 
bummers, cowboys, and hoodlums, painting a 



FROM THE SHADOWS, 83 

town red, especially of a dark night. It is a 
good advertisement for the town; it advises 
you, if you are nothing but a tenderfoot, that 
you had better hustle out of the way, and it 
emphasizes the fact, that the local authorities 
have entered into a conspiracy with the afore- 
said combination, to ruin the morals of the 
place, in order to boom the country and the 
town. 

There is a natural and there is a spiritual 
cowboy. The natural cowboy is a character, 
whose acquaintance is no longer to be desired. 
He has been sufficiently described already as 
a bragging Falstaff, mounted upon a bucking 
mustang pony. But the spiritual cowboys 
are gentlemen, whose acquaintance we should 
very much desire to cultivate. There are 
seven of these, and they constitute the body- 
guard of His Divine Majesty. You will be 
more fully introduced to them later on. 

As civilization advances farther west, and 
every available nook and corner of our 
territory is being occupied, the natural cow- 
boy finds that like Othello, his occupation is 
gradually slipping away from him; that he 
soon shall have, made his last round-up, and 
that he must now step down and out, to make 
room for the better company, the spiritual 
cowboys that are to be, and who shall soon 
supersede him. 



LECTURE XIII. 

THE MIDDLE WAY. 

It is said that — 

"When of our lives a nice review we take, 
The hours for which we have least cause to weep, 
Are those we spend in childhood, or in sleep." 

Blessed combinations! Childhood and 
sleep; youth and manhood; old age and death! 
How intimately are they associated, in our 
minds, with all our present and future aspira- 
tions! As in childhood and manhood we 
sleep a natural sleep, finding therein sweet 
surcease from every earthly care and sorrow, 
so, too, in old age and death we may look 
confidently forward to that last sleep, which 
shall usher in that glorious rest, which remain- 
eth to the people of Good. 

"Then let us sleep, and give the Maker praise, 
For Jove is wise, and equal in his ways. 
God bless the man who first invented sleep. 
So said Sancho Panza, and so say T, 
And bless him, too, that he didn't Iceep the invention, 
As well he might, a close monopoly, by patent right." 

For sleep brings rest; rest brings strength; 
strength gives capacity to think; thought is 
labor; labor is love, and love is the fulfillment 
of the Divine law, 

The magic spells of childhood must ever 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 85 

linger about us in our waking hours, and visit 
us in dreams. Who is there among us, that 
does not remember his own — 

"Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain, 
Where health and beauty cheered the laboring swain ; 
Those dear bowers of innocence and ease, 
Scenes of his youth, where every sport could please." 

These were the charms of youth; but all 
their joys have fled. 

Fate, as well as fortune, has the reputation 
of being a fickle jade, but, in the main, the}' are 
very kind to us. Neither of them would ever 
conspire to rob us of the delightful experience 
of childhood, nor to obliterate the memory of 
the time when we caught bluebirds in the 
hollow stumps, or dug sweet-roots in the old 
sugar-camp. We sometimes think fate is 
cruel, when she drags us away from the scenes 
of earthly happiness; but we are consoled by 
the reflection, that "all who tread the globe 
are but a handful, to the tribes which slumber 
in its bosom, and that we shall at last 
approach the grave, as those who wrap the 
draperies of their couch about them, and lie 
down to pleasant dreams." 

The motto of Lord Chesterfield was, that 
in going through life, we should take a 
carriage and sleep on the journey; but the 
difficulty in this case would be, that we should 
not atl have carriages to ride in, and even if 



86 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

we had, Bellamy has justly shown us, that 
none of us could ride except his neighbor 
should draw him. This service we certainly 
have no right to expect of anyone. Besides, 
the Chesterfieldian theory would controvert 
the truth, that life is real, life is earnest. 
Life is not all a picnic, by any means; there 
is work enough to do. 

"There are sins that need confessing, 
There are wrongs that need redressing. 
There is work enough to do, 
Ere the sun goes down." 

With the standing dispute between the 
optimist and the pessimist, we have little or 
nothing to do. Life is too short, and eternity 
too vast, to engage in unseemly disputes. 
We shall have enough to do to avoid extremes, 
and keep in the straight and narrow path, in 
the middle way; for we believe there is a 
middle way, a Happy Medium; that it is 
interspersed with spiritual fruits and flowers; 
that we may pluck them by the wayside, eat- 
ing alone that which is good, and like the 
spies of old, returning again to our friends, 
with grand specimens of fruitful vintage, and 
bringing goodly reports of the Promised Land. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 87 



CONDITIONS OF HAPPINESS. 

In every warfare there must be both spies 
and soldiers; but in the moral conflict every 
man must be both spy and soldier — a spy 
first, and a soldier afterward. But no man is 
fit to spy out the land, who has not sought a 
great moral elevation. He must hie himself 
to a position where there is plenty of oxygen, 
ozone, and inspiration in the air; then, taking 
his little mental field-glass, and striking a 
lucifer upon his imagination, he must illumi- 
nate the grand moral panorama, which Wis- 
dom shall condescend to pass in review before 
him. 

The way to happiness, which Wisdom 
points out, lies strictly over what is known as 
the duty line. On this line are found seven 
distinct and beautiful stations, at each of 
which the passenger is required to pay fare, 
as he passes along. There are no free passes, 
nor through tickets without change of cars, 
but the happy passenger may, upon booking 
his name at headquarters, check his baggage 
safely through to his final destination. Be- 
fore starting upon his journey, he must invest 
largely in Health, purchase a big ticket at 
Knowledge; stop and invest largely at Moral- 
ity; become acquainted and dine with his 
friend Sociability; work his passage at Indus- 
try, and at last realize that he is rolling in 



88 FROM THE SHADOWS. 



Spiritual Wealth at the end of his journey. 
These are all material stations, which the 
passenger is supposed to have properly inter- 
viewed, before he . can present his check and 
receive his baggage, at the end of the road. 
But upon receiving his baggage, he is agree- 
ably surprised to find contained therein the 
pattern of a wedding garment, and his mind 
is delighted with anticipations of a wedding 
feast, to which he is soon to be invited. 

Man is a creature of circumstances. There 
are certain conditions surrounding him, with 
which he has to do, and wmich largely deter- 
mine his destiny. Having life^ we have 
everything else to get. The first effort of a 
new-born babe is a struggle for physical 
existence. We must live, and, in order to 
live, we must observe the conditions upon 
which life depends. Eternal vigilance is the 
price of everything worth having. If men 
would strictly observe the conditions of health, 
and throw physic to the dogs, the dogs might 
die, but the men would certainly be well. 

No man desires to be thought a fool, but 
very few are willing to observe the conditions 
upon which knowledge depends. He who 
would see beautiful visions, must climb to the 
mountain-tcp. There is no excellence with- 
out great labor. In the language of the 
English cockney, "You simply pays your 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 89 

money, and you takes your choice." If we 
refuse to exercise the will-power, which gives 
quality to the actions, we must remain in a 
state of barren nudeness. 

There is no more pitiable object in God's 
universe than a moral bankrupt, a man devoid 
of will-power. Cardinal Woolsey is a case in 
point, and no wonder Shakespeare made him 
to remorsefully say, ''Had I but served my 
God with half the zeal I served my king, He 
would not thus have left me naked to mine 
enemies." It is all nonsense, or sheer hypo- 
crisy, for a man to say he cannot leave off his 
■petty vices, as well as break wholly away from 
his larger sins. The truth is, he will not, 
because his sense of morality is less than the 
strength of his passion. "No man liveth to 
himself; 5 ' he is not built that way. By virtue 
of our own existence, we must have our earthly 
parents; hence sociability is one of the condi- 
tions of our being, and it is a moral question 
for us to decide, how well we discharge our 
obligations to others, 

We must die, but we must also live; and, 
having our physical wants to administer to, 
the necessity is begotten for action. God 
does not immediately kill us with goodness. 
He does not feed us willing or unwilling, but 
He does a better thing, by giving us the 
opportunity to feed ourselves. If we exercise 



9 o FROM THE SHADOWS. 

this opportunity, we become industrious, and 
thus fulfill another law of our being. If all 
these former conditions are complied with, the 
result is, we shall not lack any good thing, 
which is necessary for our comfort. 

But when we become wealthy in a material 
sense, there is an aching void which the world 
cannot fill. We are compelled to remember 
the Divine injunction, "With all thy getting, 
get wisdom" But where shall wisdom be 
found? Every fool can tell where it is not, 
but where is he? We have been looking for 
him, and hope to show him to you later on. 

The world is filled with natural and spirit- 
ual tramps, men who will neither work for 
bread, nor exercise the moral courage to build 
up a Christian-character. The one we know 
already; the other is the meaner man of the 
two, because his opportunities are greater, 
and with him nature has been more lavish 
with her gifts. The spiritual tramp is the 
true Ishmaelite of the earth, whose hand is 
against every man, and in turn every man's 
hand shall be against him. His progeny is a 
numerous one, and his sons are often found 
occupying high places in the land, sometimes 
sitting at the receipt of customs, at other 
times assuming the responsibility of executing 
the laws. But wherever found, he is known 
and read by honest men, as wearing about 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 91 

him evermore the curse of Cain. If he does 
not aspire to high places, he may be daily 
seen in the saloon or upon the street corner, 
as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may 
devour, or perhaps as a loud-braying political 
jackass, either sulking, or trying to frighten 
someone with his loud-sounding voice. He 
never succeeds in accomplishing his object, 
however, for his true character is always sus- 
pected by a discriminating public. 



LECTURE XIV. 

GOOD AND PERFECT GIFTS. 

There are three grand and beautiful truths 
in our political declaration, that the inalien- 
able rights of men are, those of life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. But there is, 
perhaps, a grander and more primitive truth, 
couched in the language, that every good gift 
and every perfect gift cometh down from 
above, from the Father of Light, in whom 
there is no variableness, neither shadow of 
turning. As our political fabric rests on the 
basis of natural life, liberty, and happiness, 
so our spiritual structure is based on the 
cardinal truth, that good gifts and perfect 
gifts come down from the Father of Natural 
and Spiritual Light. 



92 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

Without being convicted of an attempt to 
sermonize, we may call your attention to the 
fact, that even a blind man ought to be able 
to distinguish between good and -perfect gifts. 
Health and knowledge belong to the first class, 
but wisdom and love are of a very different 
character. The natural light is a good gift, 
which we receive daily, without observation 
or comment; but the spiritual light we hail as 
a superior being. It is because these fine dis- 
tinctions are not always perceptible, that the 
world of mankind is, to some extent, groveling 
in moral darkness; not because they cannot 
see them, but because their mental eyelids 
are not lifted up, to Him from whom their 
help cometh. 

The natural man is stronger than the 
spiritual; hence he reaches out very early in 
life, grasps his brother by the throat, and, if 
he does not immediately choke the life out of 
him, he can, at least, so far cripple his sensi- 
bility, that he will never become, to any great 
extent, a formidable rival. 

He who does the best he can, does well act 
nobly; angels could do no more. But what 
per cent, of the human family are making 
an honest, earnest effort to do the best they 
can, under all the circumstances of life? We 
delight to deceive ourselves. 

Here the parable of the buried talent 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 93 

applies, with equal force, against every 
mother's son, who seeks to evade his duty by 
vain excuses. Know ye not, that our hearts 
are open to the eyes of Him with whom we 
have to do? We hustle and rustle, to get 
possession of material wealth; and just so sure 
as this is necessary in one case, it is necessary 
in the others. We must become spiritual 
rustlers, forgetting the things which are behind, 
reaching out to the things which are before, 
remembering that, in theory, man never is, 
but always to be blessed, and that -perfection 
of happiness lies always in the future. 

In every manifestation of life, there are 
two things to be considered. These are^ the 
blood and the conscience. As there can be no 
healthy physical organization without good 
blood, so there can be no perfectly-formed 
spiritual body without a good conscience. 
We know it is argued, that conscience is not 
always a safe guide; but we have always 
found a good, healthy, well-developed, full- 
grown conscience the best friend in the world, 
and the safest and most reliable guide to 
follow. Of course, it must be quickened by 
love, else it would not be healthy. Eternal 
vigilance is not only the price of liberty, it is 
more than that, it is the price of bread, both 
natural and spiritual. 



94 FROM THE SHADOWS. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE AGE. 

Since the ancient philosopher went about at 
noonday, with a lighted candle, searching for 
men of character, the demand has never been 
satisfied. The demand is increasing for men 
of strong mental and moral endowments; for 
men who know the right, and dare maintain 
it; men whose hearts are overflowing with the 
milk of human kindness, and who are willing 
to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. 
There has never been too many Josephs and 
Joshuas, Davids, nor Pauls, neither has there 
been too many Gladstones, Washingtons, nor 
Lincolns, and oh, how we have learned to 
love our Bryants, Whittiers, and Longfellows. 

The night of spiritual darkness is far spent, 
the day is at hand. The people are begin- 
ning to learn very fast, and they can now 
distinguish between Beauty and the Beast. 
The line of morality is being more strictly 
drawn every day. The great army of im- 
moral, swinish kickers have been kicking until 
they are growing tired, and now that public 
opinion is beginning to squeeze them, they 
are manifesting their discomfiture by grunting 
and squealing. We have no doubt that eter- 
nal vigilance, backed by public sentiment, will 
ultimately have a tendency to cheapen the 
price of human pork. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 95 

The public conscience is being quickened; 
public sentiment is being educated and en- 
lightened; the force of public opinion is 
becoming a great iveight, influencing and 
shaping our legislation for the better, both 
State and National. Public opinion shall 
ultimately become the spiritual millstone, 
which, hung about the neck of the monster of 
iniquity, shall drag him down, like McGinty, 
to the bottom of the sea. 

The poorer classes, the honest toilers of the 
land, now desire a breathing spell; they want 
time to think a little. They begin to realize 
that they, too, have some rights, which law- 
makers and millionaires are bound to respect; 
that a paternal government should not tempt 
them, above that which they are able to bear. 
Many of them, like true prodigals, now desire 
to return to their Father's house, and are will- 
ing to break off their sins, by returning to the 
Lord. But necessity knows no moral law, 
and so long as Capital will be unjust, there 
must of necessity be Ishmaelites in society, in 
the church, and in the state. The People, as 
well as the Supreme Court, are now supposed 
to know a thing or two, and they are demand- 
ing that the Money God shall be at least just, 
if he is not generous. 

Progression and development are, indeed, 
the laws of nature. Evolution is all right. 



96 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

Not that we are descended from a race of 
lower animals, but that it is the Divine law of 
change, whereby injustice shall cease and 
equity be meted out to all, and all of our 
natural bodies, which are fitted for the trans- 
formation, shall ultimately become spiritual 
ones. 

The world and the church are both demand- 
ing new ideas, and they will get them just in 
proportion as the demand increases; for in 
our Father's house there is bread enough and 
to spare. In mercy God gives us knowledge 
in return for Ignorance, and if we still look 
up imploringly, we shall receive the Pearl of 
Great Price. The fatherhood of Good, and 
the brotherhood of Man, is a doctrine which 
we can all receive. Here is a basis of church 
union, and when I say it is good enough for 
me, why can there not be a general exclama- 
tion all along the moral line, "Me too! Me 
too!'' 

In our eager chase for worldly wealth and 
bodily amusement, we have but little time 
for reflection, and give ourselves little or none 
to bestow upon the building of the great 
spiritual temple; for, disguise it as we may, 
we are builders — 

'•'And are building, every day, a temple the world may not 

see; 
Building every day, building for eternity. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 97 

If a man should make a great feast and 
invite his friends to the banquet, he must 
needs exercise great care in the selection of 
the good things which he would set before 
them. Let us remember, then, that we have 
already been brought to the banqueting house; 
that the banner over, us is love, and that our 
object should henceforth be the discovery and 
dissemination of truth, the end in view the 
promotion and perpetuation of human hap- 
piness, and our earnest desire the greatest 
possible good to the greatest number. 



LECTURE XV. 



SEARCHING FOR TRUTH. 



We trust we are neither political knaves, 
fools, nor Flanigans. We do not propose to 
misrepresent nor outrage the feelings of a 
trusting and confiding constituency, but we do 
assume to be the true representatives of a 
higher and better civilization. We are advocat- 
ing, with all the earnestness of our spiritual 
natures, a more perfect bond of universal 
brotherhood. We come in the name of Right- 
eousness, Truth, Justice, Mercy, and Light, 
and, recognizing the value of life, and the 



98 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

necessity of right living, we demand, in a 
spiritual sense, the answer to Flanigan's once 
foolish question, "What are we here for?" 
Who am I? What am I? From whence do 
I come, and whither do I go?" 

In considering the three principal factors 
involved, in the solution of the great problems 
of life and human happiness, we are not to be 
restrained or kept back by any foolish, super- 
stitious dread of the supernatural; neither are 
we to rush in rashly and foolishly unbidden 
upon holy ground. In some respects, at 
least, every man is supposed to be his brother's 
keeper; but no man may assume to be the 
authoritative spiritual guide of his brother, or 
seek to establish a property interest in his 
conscience, and this for the reason, that the 
same data from which truth may be evolved 
is equally accessible to all. Each human 
mind is an empire of itself; hence the most 
that we can possibly and properly do is, to 
excite each others minds to proper action, and 
then each empire may extend its spiritual 
domain at pleasure; at least as far as it is 
possible to do so. 

No man living has a monopoly on truth; 
hence there is no authority for human creeds. 
There once lived a man who had a monopoly 
of this kind; but he was more than man, he 
was God manifest in the flesh. As man he is 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 99 

dead, but as God he still lives. He is the 
God of Truth, and he has given to the world 
a perfect Revelation; but the world has never 
perfectly understood Him, partly because of 
the imperfection of human knowledge, but 
principally because knowledge has never been 
vigorously and exclusively applied in that 
direction. But when shall human knowledge 
become perfect, and how shall it become so? 
These questions are suggestive, and are 
intended for you to answer personally. What 
shall the answer be? 

Each of us should eagerly engage in the 
acquisition of knowledge solely for the purpose 
of being able to comprehend the truth, and 
when we find a particle of this precious 
treasure, we should appropriate it, and store it 
carefully away in our earthen vessels, until 
the capacity is filled. But if we do not dis- 
cover enough for practial purposes, we should 
gladly receive and appropriate that tendered 
us by others. After receiving enough of the 
needful commodity, we may distribute gratuit- 
ously among our neighbors, realizing that as 
we have freely received, we may also freely 
give, and that of the two the giving is the 
more blessed. 

Longfellow, the great heart-poet, under- 
stood this sentiment perfectly well, when he 
said — 



:oo FROM THE SHADOWS. 

"If any thought of mine, e'er said or sung, 

Hath given delight or consolation, 
Ye will pay me back a thousand fold, 
By every friendly sign, or salutation." 



CONTINUING THE SEARCH. 

The prehistoric condition of affairs was, a 
world of choatic darkness. The present 
beautiful existing condition of laiv and order 
had its origin only in light, and every pro- 
gressive revelation to man, since the world 
began, has been but another revealed edition 
of the same Divine character. Every new 
and added light, each successive revelation, 
has been manifested only through the intelli- 
gence of man, The intelligent and educated 
mind of Moses, was the medium through 
which Good was pleased to reveal, to us, the 
grandest spiritual light which, at that time, 
the world had yet seen; a light which still 
shines for us, and which shall continue to shed 
its lustre upon all future generations. But 
even this spiritual brightness was afterward 
totally eclipsed, by the effulgence which ema- 
nated from the subtle mind of the humble 
Nazarene philosopher. One was simply light 
in a dark place; the other was an universal 
and a perfect illumination. 

The brightness which attended the Son of 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 101 

Good was so intense in its brilliancy that it 
paralyzed, for a time, the spiritual vision of 
the whole world. Men did not understand it, 
and many of our spiritual visions are paralyzed 
even unto this day; but the eye of intelligence 
has gradually accustomed itself to the light, 
for eighteen hundred years, until now our 
spiritual optics are growing stronger, and 
many of us can begin to see not only the 
beauties of this natural world, but are also 
beginning to catch glimpses of that more 
spiritual and beautiful world, which both 
now is, and which is to come. 

"Jerusalem, the Golden, I languish for one gleam 
Of all thy glory folden, in distance and in dream. 
My thoughts, like palms in exile, climb up to watch and pray, 
For a glimpse of that dear country, which lies so far away." 

Once upon a time, when a great naturalist 
was about to impart instruction to a class in 
in geology, lifting up his eyes to heaven, he 
said instinctively, ''Young gentlemen, before 
commencing to study the nature of these 
rocks, let us pray to God, who made the 
rocks, for wisdom to guide us in our inves- 
tigations.'' It seems to be the nature of man, 
when left to himself, to take an improper, 
imperfect, and superficial view of things, and, 
being conscious of his own ignorance, he 
instinctively looks up, for a higher and better 



102 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

knowledge, both of his own nature and of the 
things about him. 

We are, as certain of the poets have said, 
intellectually and morally speaking, children 
crying in the night, and with no language but 
to cry. It is true, that the mind has the 
power of originating ideas; but it is also true, 
that it lacks power of endurance and concen- 
tration. None of us can look for two hours, 
steadfastly and earnestly, at the point of a 
cambric needle, and for this reason there are 
many beautiful truths, both in human and 
Divine philosophy, which we will never be 
enabled to fully grasp and realize. 

There are some men endowed with broader 
intellect, keener powers of perception, greater 
powers of concentration, and more will-purpose 
than ourselves. These men are already 
claiming the discovery of new truth concern- 
ing the problems of life, and human happiness. 
Shall we not hear them patiently? Or shall 
we disbelieve them, simply because their 
theories come in contact with our own, or, 
perhaps, because their philosophy is too pro- 
found for our immediate comprehension? 



LECTURE XVI, 



CONFLICT OF THE SILENT FORCES. 

It is always a good time to join the proces- 
sion while the band is playing and there are 
always some intellectual fellows ready to give 
us free concerts in the intellectual atmosphere. 
It is well enough to hold fast to that which is 
good, but it is first necessary to -prove all 
things. But how can this be done without 
discussion and agitation? The world has 
been under marching orders for over six thou- 
sand years, and these orders apply to the 
human intellect, as well as to the planetary 
system. Men, as well as the planets, are not 
only continually moving about a common 
center, but are also moving onward and 
upward, into illimitable space. The flight of 
the eagle, sailing ships at sea, and the fleecy 
clouds, which float forever beyond the range 
of human vision, all point us to a spiritual 
world, and teach us that there is a great 
Beyond, a refuge from the storms of life, a 
haven of rest, a house of Good not made with 
hands, eternal in Happiness, somewhere in 
the sweet by and by. 

Spiritual blindness is the curse of the -world, 
and Ignorance is the father of it. Yet in all 
this gloomy darkness we hear the still, small 



104 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

voice, "Knowing and doing is the sum of 
human happiness." 

Many of you have been soldiers in a material 
warfare, and know, by experience, that the 
only way to get reliable information is, by 
going to headquarters. You could hear camp 
rumors every day, but they were either down- 
right lies, or creatures of vain imagination. 
But when at last, one dark and gloomy night, 
the express messenger came dashing direct 
from headquarters, with the news that Lee had 
surrendered, then you knew that the vjar was 
over, that the last battle had been fought, 
that the last enemy had surrendered, and 
that you could now burn your old clothes, pack 
your knapsacks, strike your tents, burn the 
bridge behind you, bid goodby to the foe, and 
march triumphantly home to your own coun- 
try. 

The analogy holds good in the spirit world. 
When the heart is cast down and sore dis- 
tressed, we look up for the light, and immedi- 
ately there comes the still, small voice, saying — 

"Child of the dust, from torpid ruin rise, 
Be earth's delusions from thy bosom hurled, 

And try to measure, with enlightened eyes, 
The dread importance of the eternal world." 

There is no sound of revelry, no clash of 
resounding arms. The soul, or the life, mind 
and affection, which is all the same, fights her 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 105 

battles in silence. Yet it is a fearful struggle, 
a fight for life, and the survival of the fittest. 
There is no visible scarred battlefield, but the 
engagement is general all along the line. The 
conflict is here, there, and everywhere, where- 
ever the human heart beats, or the human 
brain pulsates, there is the bloodless battle- 
field, there is the red-handed war, and either 
death is holding high carnival over some de- 
parting soul, or life is rejoicing with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory. 

With some the old hydra-headed monster, 
Vice, has grown to be a chestnut. But we 
love to roast him, all the same, and whenever 
we see him show his colors, like the troopers 
at Waterloo, there is mounting in hot haste, 
and speeding to the battlefield. 



THE LAST ROUND-UP. 

But lest you should grow tired of this kind 
of moralizing, and imperatively demand that 
we should give you a rest, if the band will now 
favor us with a tune, we will trot out the 
promised spiritual cow boys. They are no 
longer simply conditions of our well-being, but 
real personalities, and each is a personage as 
real as if he were actually mounted on a 
broncho. But no bronchos for them! They 



106 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

are mounted upon spiritual steeds, 'and are 
directed by the true Father of the spiritual 
world, who in turn is mounted upon the beau- 
tiful white steed, Divine Wisdom. Their 
names are Life, Wisdom, Love, Truth, Jus- 
tice, Mercy, and Light. See them as they 
come trooping in. They are dandies, and all 
are safely clad in shining coats of mail, so that 
nothing on earth shall dare to hurt, molest, or 
make them afraid. They are about to make 
a grand round-up on all the vast ranges of 
humanity. Human nature shall be gathered 
into one vast corral, and there it shall all be 
branded; there shall be no spiritual mavericks. 
Some shall bear in their faces the stamp of 
the Divine image, but others shall be branded 
evermore with the curse of Cain. 

Good shall be there to claim those who are 
his. He shall march them out by battalions, 
regiments, brigades, divisions, and army corps, 
placing over them the Captain of their Salva- 
tion; and He shall lead them up to the top of 
an exceeding high mountain, even to the top 
of the mountain of the Lord's house, where 
they shall lie down 'mid green pastures, and 
sleep forever sweetly beside the still waters. 

Evil shall also be there to claim those who 
are his. He shall take them out and lead 
them down, into a dark and dismal valley. 
There they shall die, and there they shall be 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 107 

buried, and over them shall be erected one 
grand, gloomy, and peculiar monument. It 
shall be the perpetual monument of God's 
eternal wrath, and on that monument shall 
be written, in bold, bright letters, which the 
whole world may read, "Here lies buried a 
race of human fools!" 

There shall be a few special epitaphs. Over 
the grave of one shall be written, "Here lies 
a miser, who died of avarice; gorging him- 
self so thoroughly upon his ill-gotten gains, 
and refusing to take an emetic, he died before 
the doctor could possibly get there. There 
was found no balm in Gilead which could heal 
him.'' 

Here we pause at the grave of a pompous 
egotist. Poor fellow, how we pity him! He 
became so purled up with self-conceit, that he 
suddenly died of spontaneous combustion. 
The hypocrite is not considered worthy of an 
epitaph, for no man desires to remember him, 
and none so vile as to do him reverence. 

But here lies the vile carcass of a worthless 
libertine, who died of lust, which took posses- 
sion of his soul, like a consuming fire, destroy- 
ing alike his hope of Heaven and Happiness. 
He died as the fool dieth, and his works do 
follow him. 

Here in this humble grave we find the se- 
quel to the foregoing story; for we now come 



108 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

to the grave of a poor, despised Magdalene, 

who, when the tempter came, had no strength 

of purpose to resist his will, and when she 

fell she fell like Lucifer, never to hope again. 

"One more unfortunate, 

Rashly importunate, gone to her death. 

Lift her up tenderly, 

Fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair." 

"Tread softly, bow the head, in reverence silence bow; 

No passing bell doth toll, yet an immortal soul is passing 

now, 

******** 

There's a grim, one-horse hearse — with a jolly round trot; 

To the church-yard a pauper is going. 

The road is rough and the hearse has no springs; 

Hark to the dirge, which the sad driver sings. 

Rattle her bones over the stones; 

She's only a pauper, who nobody owns." 



LECTURE XVII. 

THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATES. 

We now give you, in short form, the new 
version of the old story of Eloi: 

A great many years ago, a Child was born 
in the old dilapidated town of Ignorance. 
Being a very good boy, he very much desired 
to go to a Better Country. .Away out on the 
Journey of Life, at a place called Knowledge, 
Wisdom had established a toll-gate, and when 
our Brother had gotten that far on his journey, 
being tired, and stopping to pay his toll, he 
sat down by the wayside to rest and refresh 
himself a little. Looking up over the toll- 
gate door, he saw a sign, which read, "Keep 
to the Right, and still pursue thy journey, for 
the Beautiful City lies just beyond." We are 
glad to know that our Elder Brother — for it 
was he — kept these injunctions to the very 
letter, and that now he is safely housed at 
home in Heaven and in Happiness. And re- 
joicing as we do, that our Brother has reached 
his destination at last, we break forth into 
singing that grand old song — 

"Hold the Fort, for we are coming." 

Our Brother, whose name is now Divine 
Wisdom, and who has been so long lying 
daily at the gates waiting to be gracious, 



no FROM THE SHADOWS. 

catches the glad refrain, and stands boldly up 
before us. We see him as he is. He is the 
Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning 
Star, the fairest among ten thousand, and the 
one altogether lovely. We approach him 
gladly, singing. He smiles sweetly upon us, 
and beckons us to come nearer. He now halts 
us, and gently demands the countersign. We 
approach and gladly give it. It is, "Holiness 
to Ike Lord '." The spell is now broken; for 
the Beautiful Gates, which have so long stood 
ajar, are now thrown wide open, and we 
march triumphantly through, and take peace- 
able possession of the Everlasting City. 

"Now our hearts are filled with tenderness and tears, 
And tears are in our eyes, we know not whj. 
With all our happiness, content to live for years, 
Or even this hour to die. 

We hold the keys of Heaven within our hands, 

The gift and heirloom of a former state; 

And up and down the skies, with winged sandals shod, 

The angels come and go, the messengers of God." 



A THREE-CORNERED FIGHT. 

In all ages, philosophers have bobbed up 
serenely, and given us their theories of life 
and happiness. But no theory ever advanced 
seems so well adapted to meet the necessities 
of the case, as that advanced by the Nazarine. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. in 

It not only seems to have great staying quali- 
ties, but is like a tree planted by the river of 
waters. It is spreading out, until its branches 
are beginning to cover the whole earth, so that 
ultimately all nations may sit down under its 
shadow with great delight, and its fruit shall 
become sweet to their taste. 

The age of Ignorance is dead, or fast dying 
out. She lies, or shall soon lie, a lifeless 
corpse at the feet of Knowledge. Knowledge 
shall wear the sceptre for a time, and her 
reign shall be glorious; but she, too, shall lie 
down and die, at the feet of Wisdom. Between 
Ignorance, Knowledge, and Wisdom, it is a 
three-cornered fight for life, and the survival 
of the fittest. Christ and his doctrine are our 
wisdom, and both he and it shall live forever. 

"King of glory, reign forever; 

Thine an everlasting crown. 
Nothing from thy love shall sever 

Those whom Thou hast made Thine own." 

All that is necessary, as a permanent basis 
of church union is a perfect interpretation of 
Christ. Who shall give us this interpretation 
but the Holy Ghost? And who or what is 
the Holy Ghost but Love? The interpreta- 
tion must be reasonable, and it must conform 
to the simple words of Good. Such an inter- 
pretation as this, such a system of religion as 
this begets, must commend itself to every man 



ii2 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

and woman, who has sense enough to 
appreciate that life is worth living. 

If we were called upon to diagram the situ- 
ation, we would outline a hemisphere with a 
horizontal line through the center of it, then 
write "Fool" below the line, and "Wise Man" 
above it. We would then have presented the 
Divine problem. How shall we eliminate 
foolishness from the foolish man below the 
line, convert him into a wise man, and 
elevate him into a position above the line? 
We would have to give it up, and that is 
exactly what human nature has already done. 
But the difficult question was solved by 
Divine Wisdom, before the earth had yet 
been made a suitable place for the habitation 
of man, and now we are justly called upon to 
consider the proper solution of the problem. 

The old story of the long, wide, and deep 
river, separating a dumb long-eared animal 
from a juicy hay-stack, is very pertinent; for 
when some philanthropic person had been 
good enough to erect a strong bridge, over 
which the starving animal might pass to green 
pastures, and the obstinate animal preferred 
to remain away rather than eat and live, 
tradition says it served him right, and that 
his unhappy fate was a just one. 

Knowledge is good, but wisdom is better. 
With men, as well as mules, knowledge is 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 113 

often deficient, while obstinacy is a superfluity, 
and wisdom a minus quantity. The mule is 
all backbone and no brains, and some men 
are built the same way. The spinal cord is 
all right, but the major part of the medulla 
is at the wrong end. Hence we have a race 
of chronic kickers. 

Knowledge is a grand old tree, but Wisdom 
is a sublime conception. Wisdom is the true 
champion. He is a better man than Knowl- 
edge, and can knock him out every time. 
In the fight for life, Ignorance is a fool. 



"Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind, from error, 
Then there were no need of arsenals and forts. 



LECTURE XVIII. 



SEARCHING FOR GOD. 



As the organization and equipment of an 
army must always precede the combat or 
opposing forces, so there are always conditions 
precedent, upon which every fact or theory 
depends. Our religion is both a theory and a 
fact — a fact that such a thing as human hap- 
piness actually exists, and a theory which 
establishes, promotes, and perpetuates its 
existence, beyond a possibility of a reasonable 
doubt. 



1 1 4 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

The existence of intelligent man begets the 
necessity of a Christian religion. Were there 
no intelligent man, no Christian religion would 
be necessary. But you would go farther, and 
have us seek for the cause or causes, upon 
which the existence of man himself depends. 
In doing this you seek to establish a God of 
mystery, which is, to some extent, a God of 
foolishness. Whether God creates man, or 
man creates his own God is a vexed question. 
We suspect that the truth lies just half-way 
between. 

The preliminary skirmish always preceds 
the true battle, which awards the victory to 
one, and only one, of the contesting and 
opposing forces. Truth and Error have inces- 
santly chased each other over bloody battle- 
fields for centuries, and victory is now about 
to come home to roost. 

"On life's unyeilding battlefield, 

Two marshaled hosts are seen. 
The j shout and whoop on either side, 

While death flows black between. 

One marches to the drum-beat's roll, 

The wide-mouth clarion's bray, 
And bears upon a crimson scroll — 

'Out glory is to slay!' 

One moves in silence by the stream, 

With sad, yet watchful eyes, 
Calm as the patient planet's gleam, 

That walks the cloudless skies. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 115 



Along its front no sabres shine, 

No blood-red pennants wave; 
Its banner bears the single line — 

'Out duty is to save!' 

While valor's haughty champions wait. 

Till all their scars are shown, 
Love walks, unchallenged, through the gate, 

To sit beside the throne." 

Error grows and multiplies by the very 
fungus which it feeds upon. It is not denied 
that the present age has the foundation stone 
of the spiritual edifice. But it is confidently 
claimed that it has neither intelligently nor 
successfully builded thereon. With the two 
extremes of orthodoxy and infidelity, we have 
little or nothing to do, except in so far as 
truth shall justly censure the one or sharply 
reprimand the other. They are both chil- 
dren of a benighted and antiquated father, and 
so far from gathering with the Master, are 
actually scattering abroad. 

There must, indeed, be a God, for to this, 
orthodoxy, Ingersollism, and the higher criti- 
cism have all agreed. One says, a God of 
mystery, which is but a God of foolishness. 
Another says, solely a God of imagination, a 
creature of man. But the higher criticism, 
the more perfect knowledge, says there is a 
God both of Reason and Revelation, and 
that He alone is King of kings and Lord of 
lords. Whether God creates man or man 



n6 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

creates his own God, the important point is 
conceded that God does actually exist. 

Since the existence of God is conceded, it 
becomes necessary to inquire as to what kind 
of a being He is. Here is where all the 
trouble begins. The Lord still looks down 
from Heaven, to see if there are any who seek 
to know and understand His Divine character. 
But they, like sheep, have all gone astray, 
and are not looking in the -profer direction. 
Ignorance is the curse of the world. Know- 
ledge is the Divine hey, which unlocks the 
storehouse, and sets the heavenly gates ajar, 
while Wisdom is the lamp which guides the 
heavely way. 

In the race for happiness there is a great 
deal of horse-play. We spend too much 
time in scoring, and have to be reminded by 
the judge, that we must quit fooling and bring 
up that horse. We once heard a great 
preacher give a lecture on the "Good Old 
Songs.'' He scored for three-quarters of an 
hour before getting off, and finally came to 
the scratch, a winner by a neck; actual time 
consumed in the lecture, only twelve minutes 
by the watch. 

It is no uncommon thing for a man, who 
does not understand his subject, to try to 
cover it up with a multitude of words. Many 
big preachers scratch their empty head all the 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 117 

week in despair, searching for a few thoughts 
to ventilate before their fashionable congre- 
gations on Sunday, and in their helpless 
inability to catch the spiritual meaning of the 
text, go painfully foundering around in the 
Gospel tub, to the disgust of sensible lay- 
men. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW. 

No man hath seen God at any time, and 
why? Not because there is no god, neither 
because He is not a personal being, but 
becausejHis personality is a spiritual person- 
ality. But you ask, What is a spiritual 
personality? And in the answer to this, we 
find the real nature of the true Divinity. 

Let us first inquire, What is a spirit? 
Have our pastors told us before? If not, 
then why not ? A spirit is a vital or living 
-princi-ple, with which we have to do — nothing 
less, nothing more. With respect to their 
quality, they are either good or evil, and they 
conduce either to our happiness or misery. 
Let Christain Science protest if she will. We 
are after the truth, and she is young yet, and 
can afford to wait. Aside from vitality, there 
is no mystery. Life is the only mystery of 



nS FROM THE SHADOWS. 

godliness. All other so called mysterious 
spirits are a fraud, a delusion, and a snare. 

The so-called mystery of godliness has been 
a perpetual stumbling-block to the world ever 
since its promulgation. It is to be regretted 
that Paul ever used such language. If men 
would ponder upon the exclusive words of 
Christ mo7'e, and -predicate less upon the 
language of the apostles, Christianity would 
soon take on a new impetus, and be suscepti- 
ble of a more spiritual interpretation. The 
religion of Moses was largely a religion of 
superstition. This was due to the prevalence 
of ignorance in his day. Because of his own 
personal superiority in intelligence and edu- 
cation, however, he sought out the why and 
wherefore of things, and being a philanthropist, 
he desired to promote and perpetuate the 
happiness of his fellows, sending them, by a 
gradual process, to a comparative realization 
of perfect happiness. Moses was not only a 
type of Christ, but to some extent, both a 
material and a spiritual Christ, to his breth- 
ren. 

You ask, Would you have a new Christ 
today? We say, No, not necessarily. But we 
must have a better understanding of the old. 
Otherwise our present religious creeds are 
doomed to fall to pieces, of their very incon- 
sistency. Every good man is a Christ, but 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 119 

not the Christ. You ask, Would you tear 
down the ancient and venerable structure of 
our fathers, and obliterate the landmarks 
which in the past have guided us to such 
exalted heights of national happiness and 
prosperity? This is a question which sounds 
well, but where is the boasted happiness and 
prosperity of the masses, compared with what 
it should be, under the beneficent order of 
things, as contemplated by the true Christ? 
We would tear down nothing which may not 
be reconstructed with better material. Not 
that the old is worthless, but that the new is 
infinitely better. 

Granted it is easier to tear the old fabric 
down than to rebuild; but this is the Lord's 
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The 
Lord hath, indeed builded his house. But, 
like the temple of old, it must needs be torn 
down and reconstructed, giving place to a 
more spiritual edifice; and in this is the truth 
manifest, that He maketh even the wrath of 
man to praise Him. 

In this world, we recognize that principles 
only are essential and vital; that, as compared 
with men, they are everything, and men are 
nothing. If we contend, it is for principle; if 
we fight, we fight for principle. The natural 
man is of the earth and devoid of principle. 
The moral man, the spiritual man, is the 



i2o FROM THE SHADOWS. 

Lord from Heaven, and those who are like- 
minded partake of His Divine character, be- 
coming both kings of men and priests unto 
God in the Spirit world. 



LECTURE XIX. 



REACHING A CLIMAX. 



God is not a terrible being, seeking an op- 
portunity to destroy His adversaries; they are 
simply seeking to destroy themselves, and He 
has no physical nor moral power to prevent it, 
without his adversaries should will it other- 
wise. He is not a long-horned hoo-doo mon- 
ster, lurking about the sanctuary, waiting to 
seize upon the sinner, neither does He permit 
the Devil to assume any such disguise for the 
purpose of destruction. The religion which 
appeals to men's fears is a false religion. 
Such were the religions of Moses and Sol- 
omon. While it is true that sin is hideous, 
death is odious, Heaven is happiness, and 
Hell is misery, it is also true that Good is the 
God of Love. While it is true that God is a 
personal being, it is also true that He is a 
spiritual personality. Hence it is foolish for 
men to conceive of a personal Man-God as it 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 121 

was for the venerable Dan Tucker to climb a 
tree, expecting to get a view of Him. 

God is not only a great spirit of living prin- 
ciple, but he is the great spirit of living prin- 
ciples. A living principle is a law. A law is 
a rule of conduct prescribed by the supreme 
power, commanding what is right, and pro- 
hibiting what is wrong. But God's laws are 
laws of equity, and are for the correction of that 
wherein human laws by means of their uni- 
versal ignorance of the laws of human happi- 
ness are deficient. Human laws are the laws of 
sense, and are at enmity with the laws of God. 
The laws of sense are death, ignorance, hate, 
falsehood, injustice, cruelty, and darkness, 
and, under the dominion of these laws, we are 
all our lives subject to bondage, except we~be 
made free from the laws of sin and death, by 
the wonderful laws of life, which are found 
only in Christ our Lord. The laws of life 
are health, wisdom, love, truth, justice, 
mercy, and light. If we are subjects of these 
laws, we are neither barren nor unfruitful, 
but evergreens in the great garden of Uni- 
versal Good, things of beauty, and a joy for- 
ever. 

As the greater always includes the less, so 
God — who is the personification of goodness — 
is a concrete being, composed of all the essen- 
tial elements of goodness. Good is an abstract 



122 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

quality, while God is a positive quantity. 
The doctrine of the Trinity is well founded. 
There is a Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But 
they have never been sufficiently defined. 
This brings us to a climax. What is the 
Father? What is the Son? And what is 
the Holy Spirit? 

Life is the Father, Wisdom is the Son, and 
Love is the Holy Spirit. These three prin- 
ciples were the constituent elements of the 
Jewish God, but as yet Wisdom had not been 
made fully manifest. Hence the Jews were 
compelled to walk by faith, believing in a 
future and fuller manifestation of Wisdom and 
Love. 

No person of observation will controvert 
the fact that God has given to the world a 
series of progressive revelations. The first 
was the revelation of Life, and this was mani- 
fested by creation. But in the first revelation 
Wisdom and Love were only dimly foreshad- 
owed. In the second revelation, which cul- 
minated in the Mosaic law, Wisdom was more 
fully demonstrated. But under the law of 
sacrifice, Love was not so fully apparent. 
Under the fuller and more complete revelation 
of Christ, Love not only became manifest, but 
those other attributes of Divinity — Truth, 
Justice, and Mercy — were brought into full 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 123 

view, whereby mankind were made to rejoice, 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 

But it remains for this generation to catch 
more perfect visions of the Divine nature, by 
means of the spiritual light which is being 
manifested through a higher education, a 
higher civilization, and a more critical knowl- 
edge of things in general. The end of faith 
is obedience to law, and the end of obedience 
is the favor of God. The antediluvian God 
was simply the God of Life. The Jewish 
God was the God of Life, with Wisdom and 
Love dimly foreshadowed. The Christian 
God is a fuller fruition of Life, Wisdom, and 
Love, with Truth, Justice, and Mercy fore- 
shadowed. But the true Light, which is a 
perfect spiritual comprehension of the Scrip- 
tures, we have largely yet to obtain. Truly, 
the light shineth in the dark -places of the 
human intellect; but as yet the darkness does 
not fully comprehe?id, 

Are we about to receive a new revelation, a 
fuller dispensation? Yes. Why not? Truth, 
Justice, and Mercy, which is the true Christ, 
and which we have so long beheld at a dis- 
tance, is graciously drawing nearer, and with 
the aid of the Divine Light which Wisdom is 
shedding upon us, we may soon see the Son 
of God again appearing to the world in all His 
glory. What the world needs is, sense 



i2 4 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

enough to know the Lord, and hospitality 
enough to receive Him. Our code of ethics 
must be simplified. This, for the love of 
Good, and the common blessing of humanity, 
we propose to do. 



CONCEPTIONS OF DIVINITY. 

You who have never seen the Almighty 
God, and who have been taught to believe 
that He is a terrible being, draw near with 
thankful hearts, and gaze with delight upon 
His Divine Majesty. "I've a message from 
the Lord, hallelujah! It is only that you look 
and live.'' 

But we approach with reverence and hu- 
mility, and though we may not take off our 
shoes, as Moses did, we should tread softly, 
for we are treading upon holy ground. We 
are now coming to the burning bush. It is 
the tree of Wisdom, and, like the ancient 
Jewish candlestick, it is perpetually burning 
before the Lord, with a flame of celestial light 
and glory. We who have become kings and 
priests to Good, may now enter into the most 
holy place, and offer up sweet incense. 

The seven flames on the candlestick in the 
earthly tabernacle, were typical of the seven 
spirits of God. For there are seven spirits of 



FROM THE SHADOWS 125 

Good and seven spirits of Evil. Life, Wis- 
dom, Love, Truth, Justice, Mercy, and Light 
are the spirits of God. Death, Ignorance, 
Hate, Falsehood, Injustice, Cruelty, and 
Darkness are the spirits of the Devil. God is 
wholly good, and the Devil is wholly evil, but 
man is the connecting link. He is both good 
and evil; he is both God and Devil. The 
office of Christianity is to eliminate the evil 
from man's disposition, and leave only the 
good. But how shall this be done, and whose 
work is it? This is a truthful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came 
to save sinners. But how does He save them? 
Not by His death, but by His life and ex- 
ample. Every man is the architect of his own 
fortune in spiritual, as well as material matters. 
That God helps him who helps himself, is a 
truism. 

Christianity gives us a reasonable theory 
of the origin, nature, and destiny of man, and 
prompts us to ask ourselves, What are we 
here for, and is life worth living? When men 
begin to realize that happiness is the normal- 
condition of their being; that to promote it 
and perpetuate it is their principal business; 
that unhappiness is abnormal '; that happiness 
is Heaven; that unhappiness is Hell; that 
they make their own Heaven or Hell; that 
eternity is the duration of the life they live; 



i26 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

that happiness is eternal and shall live for- 
ever; that unhappiness is ephemeral, shall die 
the death, and lose its identity — then men 
will begin to realize something of their own 
importance; begin to open their eyes; be 
willing to catch glimpses of Beauty and the 
Beast, and have but little difficulty in admir- 
ing the one and hating the other. 

Our God is held too much in mystery. The 
personification of goodness as represented by 
Life, Wisdom, Love, Truth, Justice, Mercy, 
and Light, is the greatest God which we have 
ever known, or shall ever know. If you have 
a greater or better God, a God that is more 
exalted, I pray you show Him to me, that I 
may fall down and worship Him, as I now 
worship Good. If, upon the other hand, you 
have a meaner Devil than the personification 
of Death, Ignorance, Hate, Falsehood, Injus- 
tice, Cruelty, and Darkness, let me get but a 
view of him, and I shall abhor him, as I now 
abhor evil. 



LECTURE XX. 

DRIVING OUT THE MONEY-CHANGERS. 

Under false notion of a mysterious Divinity, 
or an unknown God, the world has been 
driven into infidelity, and the family, society, 
church, and state are all resting upon a false 
basis. Authority in the household has been 
set at defiance; the family head has too often 
become a hydra-headed monster; wives are 
either eloping with other husbands, violating 
marriage vows, or seeking a separation in the 
divorce courts; husbands are often without 
natural affection, ignoring their wives, abus- 
ing their children, spending their money in 
riotous living, or seeking false consolation in 
drunkenness and debauchery. 

A spirit of unrest has taken possession of 
the multitude. Society is fast, fussy, fastidi- 
ous, facetious, fashionable, and foolish, while 
everything is going either to the demnition 
bow-wows, to the Devil generally, or to a state 
of incestuous innocuous desuetude. The 
church, instead of being a house of prayer, 
has largely become a den of thieves, the 
wealthy nabobs of aristocracy only seeking its 
suppositional sacred precincts to hide their 
moral nakedness. The denominational rink 
houses are only vieing with each other, to see 



128 FROM THE orfADOWS, 



which can get up the grandest social exposi- 
tions, attract the largest crowds, collect the 
most money, and make the most lavish ex- 
penditures. 

The so-called church organizations are great 
financial institutions, or moneyed corpora- 
tions, where fine houses are built, fine clothing 
worn, and vast sums of money collected and 
expended ostensibly for the glory of God, but 
really to gratify the personal and social ambi- 
tion of their own membership. On all moral 
questions the high-salaried preachers are in 
the hands of their constituents, and instead of 
being free men, whom the truth has made 
free, and dictating as they should the conduct 
and policy of their congregations, they are 
bound hand and foot, by the very salaries 
which they permit themselves to receive. Did 
Judas betray his Master for thirty pieces of 
silver? How many "popular pastors'' to-day 
betray the cause of Christ on the temperance 
and other moral questions, merely to please 
their employers? Professing themselves to 
be wise, they become fools who change the 
truth of God into a lie, and worship the crea- 
ture more than the Creator. 

Instead of bringing all the tithes into the 
storehouse, and consecrating them to the Lord 
only part of the tithing is brought in, and then 
it is too often consecrated either to the god- 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 129 

dess of society, the god of selfishness, or the 
more formidable god of party politics. What 
are our weekly ministers' meetings in the 
large cities, but the convocation of self-styled 
spiritual doctors, whose chief business it is to 
feel the political party pulse, and prescribe 
for its weakness as the political bosses may 
dictate? "A man's a man for a' that," but a 
man's man as a minister of the Gospel is the 
most insignificant creature on the face of 
God's footstool. Every moral issue is speed- 
ily sidetracked in these quasi-religio political 
star-chamber proceedings, known as ministers' 
meetings, and the cue is always furnished 
either by the rich citizen taxpayer, or the 
hustling political bosses. 

The haughty spirit of denominationalism, 
robbing God of his revenue by insufficient or 
misafrporfriation of His legitimate tithing, 
is not doing the works of charity demanded. 
Hence good men, both in and out of the 
churches, have sought to alleviate human dis- 
tress, and human suffering, by the organization 
of fraternal societies. 

Thus it is seen that the church, by her 
unfaithfulness, is being daily shorn of her 
strength, just in proportion as she has lost the 
knowledge of the true God. When will she 
bring all the tithes into the storehouse and 
prove him, that she may resume her legitimate 



130 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

work, receiving to herself all the praise, and 
giving to God all the glory? 



EVOLUTION THE DIVINE LAW. 

The mountain of Lord's house is not only 
to be, but is already established in the top of 
the mountains, and even now some people of 
all nations are beginning to flow unto it. The 
night of ignorant, immoral darkness is far spent ; 
the day is at hand! Human knowledge has 
increased, until it is no longer satisfied with an 
imperfect, chaotic condition of affairs. Society 
must now be reformed on the true basis of a 
perfect Christian religion, or the spiritual light 
which has been so graciously given will soon 
be taken away. God's continued providences 
to us are but new revelations from day to day, 
and these revelations shall never cease so long 
as the earth remains. But we as a nation, by 
remissness of duty, may soon cease to be the 
medium of His Divine communication. The 
God-Man, after weeping over us, as He did 
over Jerusalem, may give us over to hardness 
of heart and reprobacy of mind, looking else- 
where to the founding of a nation which shall 
exalt itself and glorify Sim, by a faithful 
obedience to all his commands. 

The Divine law of evolution is written on 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 131 

every page of sacred and profane history. 
Both God and nature are constantly tearing 
down the old, and building up the new, and 
this fateful history shall continue to repeat 
itself, until a grand spiritual government shall 
be found, wherein dwelleth Righteousness. 
This government is in the transitory state. 
Shall she become a living butterfly among the 
nations of the earth, mounting up on wings as 
eagles, or shall she be found a dead moth, 
buried in the dust of her own forgetfulness? 
Shall we inaugurate the reign of the New 
Jerusalem, Heaven on earth, or shall we be 
swallowed up with the blackened darkness of 
an ancient Pompeii? 



LECTURE XXL 

A MOUNTAIN AND A VOLAPUK. 

The same trumpet which spoke to John on 
the Isle of Patmos; the still, small voice which 
spoke to Elijah; the sure voice of prophecy 
which spoke to Isaiah, is still speaking to us, 
saying, The mountain of the Lord's house shall 
be established in the top of the mountains. It 
speaks to us by Knowledge, giving us a more 
perfect revelation, and a more spiritual inter- 



1 32 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

pretation. By a superior knowledge we have 
a revelation revealed, which tells us the 
mountain of the Lord's house is already being 
established in the high places of the human 
understanding. 

To the educated, intelligent mind, the 
mountain of the Lord's house is no longer a 
foolish fiction, but has indeed become a beau- 
tiful and sublime reality. Its base reaches out 
unto the ends of the earth, and its grand a-peoc 
is as lofty as the blue-vaulted dome of Heaven. 
It is a beautiful pyramid, supported on one 
side by God, whose attributes are Life, Wis- 
dom, and Love, and upon the other side it is 
supported by the Son of God, whose attributes 
are Truth, Justice, and Mercy, while from its 
lofty summit is constantly emitted a holy 
flame of celestial fire, giving Life, and Light, 
and Liberty to the whole world. 

God's Divine government is, indeed, a burn- 
ing mountain, and whosoever shall draw near 
by faith, and but touch its holy fire, shall be 
cleansed from all unrighteousness. He shall 
become a child of the King, and dwell for- 
ever in the King* s holy -palace. 

We believe that Ignorance is the tower of 
confusion-, that its language is the confusion of 
tongues', that Knowledge sanctified by Wisdom 
is the language of Love, and this language 
shall become universal. 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 133 

There shall, indeed be a volapuk; but it 
shall be the language of Love. It shall be a 
spiritual being, and like unto the fairest Son 
of God. In the survival of the fittest, all 
human imperfections shall be taken away. 
We shall eventually receive free power of 
thought and volition, free power of knowl- 
edge, free power of action, free power of 
locomotion, and free power of love. We shall 
then become perfect spiritual beings. Old 
things shall pass away, and all things become 
new; for Christ, who is our wisdom, shall 
reign, until He has put all enemies under 
His feet. The last enemy which shall be 
destroyed is Death, and this shall put an end 
to the dynasty of the Devil; for Death is the 
last legitimate heir-apparent to the diabolical 
throne of Human Ignorance. 



DEVELOPING A SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

According to Gospel history and Bible 
chronology, it took four thousand and four 
years to develop one perfect Son of God. 
This was a slow process, but it empha- 
sizes the fact that the mills of Good grind 
slowly, but exceedingly sure. The whole 
scope of Bible teaching has for its object the 
ultimate development of a perfect spiritual 



i 3 4 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

world, from which evil shall be wholly elimi- 
nated, and all its subjects become perfect 
spiritual beings. Man is not to become per- 
fect at one bound, but by a series of revela- 
tions, and a gradual process of evolutions and 
developments. 

From the creation of the world, mankind 
has steadfastly looked forward to the coming 
of a higher knowledge than that which he 
originally possessed, and which higher knowl- 
edge should be to him a true Christ. He 
came, He saw, He conquered. His human 
appetites and passions were subdued. But 
the price of this conquest was the suspension 
of life in His physical body. The power of 
sin being wholly eliminated from the body of 
Christ by virtue of the law of life which gov- 
erned His being and actions, it was impossi- 
ble that the law of death should claim domin- 
ion over Him longer than He actually willed 
it to do so, for the common good of a fallen 
humanity. Three days he chose to remain 
under death's dominion, thereby appeasing 
the law of sin and death, which had hitherto 
demanded a daily sacrifice. One day of death 
was to be sacred to the memory of Life, the 
Divine Father, one in memory of Himself 
who was Wisdom, and one in memory of 
Love, the Holy Spirit. And thus in His death 
and resurrection was the law of sin condemned, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 135 

the law of life justified, and the glory of God 
vindicated. 

But you ask, Why the necessity of physical 
death for Christ, or for "any other man?" 
Why do we not live on, and on, and never 
grow old, nor change, nor pass away? We 
answer, it is for our good, both that Christ 
should suffer and that the change should also 
come to us. Do you doubt it? Then you 
are condemned already; for in this doubt your 
mind is in rebellion against the law of life, 
which is the law of Good, and which always 
seeks the happiness of its creatures. 

No man is ever in a position to be really 
happy, who has not schooled his mind to 
gracefully submit to death, the inevitable; 
for he who does this, shall become as inoffen- 
sive and innocent as the little child, who sinks 
peacefully to sleep in its mother's arms. 

The whole Christain world is now looking, 
or pretends to be anxiously looking, for the 
second coming of Christ. Is He not already 
here? Did He not say, "Lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world?" Some 
professed Christians, as well as most sinners, 
are like the conventional tramp, they are always 
looking for something, but neither very much 
expecting nor desiring to find it. "The law 
of the spirit of life" is the true Christ, and He 
is ever before our eyes. Let us not only 



136 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

touch the hem of His garment, but shall we 
not rather constrain Him to come in and dine 
and sup with us? 

On the supposition that history generally 
repeats itself, some material-minded persons 
are assuming that Christ will soon make His 
appearance in bodily form, and they are 
already fixing the date or dates and are look- 
ing anxiously forward to His second coming. 
For the benefit of those material Christians 
who expect and can reasonably afford to wait 
so long, we may say, that as the chronology 
shows it to have been four thousand and four 
years after creation until the coming of Christ, 
we may reasonably except Him to return 
again in the year 4004, or exactly twenty-one 
hundred and seven years from this date. But 
we do not advise our friends to bank too 
heavily on this statement. It is only based 
on the assumption that history always repeats 
itself. 

It is granted that the development of a 
perfect spiritual world, inhabited by a race of 
perfect spiritual beings, is a gigantic under- 
taking, and that it necessarily requires much 
time for its accomplishment. But those 
material Christains who cannot afford to labor, 
as well as to wait, may now imitate the action 
of Peter, get their nets and go fishing; for 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 137 

they may certainly expect but little or no part 
in the heritage when the Lord shall come. 

But the developing process is now going on 
much faster than before the Christain era. 
The leaven has been at work, and the Gospel 
dough is being kneaded and moulded into 
many beautiful shapes, while Love, the Holy 
Fire sent down from Heaven, is gradually 
baking the true Bread of Life in many joyful 
and waiting human hearts. 



LECTURE XXII. 



CONVERTING THE SOUL. 



Christianity is a theory, and it is a reason- 
able one, the alpha and omega of which is 
Life. From life to life, is the spiritual watch- 
word. Vitality is the first great operating 
cause, the primal force which assisted by 
Wisdom and Love, created the first heaven, 
the first earth, and the first man, and assisted 
by Truth, Justice, Mercy, and Light, will 
continue to create new forms of intelligence, 
until mankind shall become a perfect spiritual 
being. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose, that 
these same operating causes may eliminate 
materiality, and substitute spirituality, leav- 
ing nothing of the original or primal man 



138 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

but his spiritual nature. As Good, or God, 
who is the absolute personification of good- 
ness, constitutes the Great Spirit, so man, 
partaking of the nature of his Divine parent, 
is also a spiritual being, and destined to be 
possessed of all the spiritual attributes of his 
Maker. The natural man, being imperfect, 
must give place to the spiritual. Materiality 
must be cast out and spirituality enthroned. 
We shall be in His likeness and His image, 
when we shall know Him and see Him as He 
is, and, like Enoch of old, we shall be trans- 
lated from the kingdom of darkness to the 
kingdom of God's dear Son, where we shall 
walk and talk with Good. We shall be no 
more strangers and pilgrims in the land of 
disobedience, but fellow-citizens with the 
saints, and members of His own dear house- 
hold. 

This is for you. Do you say you cannot 
break off the chains which bind you? Are 
you tied to the relentless wheels of a political 
Juggernaut? Are the gods of mammon or of 
personal ambition seeking to destroy you? 
Does the bewitching sorcery of the society 
goddess wink and blink at you with both eyes? 
B-ware! B a man! B anything but a hypocrite 
and a sinner. 

How much real happiness do you enjoy in 
your present condition ? Would you have new 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 139 

desires, new hopes, and new aspirations 
kindled within your better nature? Turn 
from the worship of false gods, break 
down " every idol, then casting your eyes 
upward behold the light of the stars, and 
imagine, if you can, what secrets their con- 
stellations withhold. Stand at the foothills 
of the mountains in the vicinity of Pike's Peak 
on a clear and cloudless Sabbath morning; 
look up and beyond the clouds to Cameron's 
Cone, and then still up and beyond the timber 
line to the white-capped summit of the awful 
mount; watch the mist as it gathers from its 
summit, and floats grandly off in the direction 
of New Mexico, and then with the spirits of 
admiration and inspiriation utter instincitively 
and reverently, as we have done. ''Thou 
touchest the hills and they smoke. Great 
and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God 
Almighty. In Wisdom and goodness hast 
Thou made them all!" With calm and 
thoughtful meditation, and a heart filled with 
sublime emotion at the grand spectacle before 
you, turn your steps to the nearest house of 
devotion; for the church bells are already 
ringing, calling you to worship, and as the 
lifeless organ peals forth its melodious sounds, 
and the trained voices of the singers unite in 
praising God, you may feel that you are an 
object of His love, and that henceforth you 



140 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of 
the Lord, than to dwell in the tents of wick- 
edness. If, under all these happy influences, 
your heart should be touched, and breathe 
forth a silent prayer for deliverance, I am sure 
the Lord would hear you, that He would 
speak peace to your soul, and that He would 
gently bid you go your way and sin no more. 
Do you ask, What is the soul? It is the 
spiritual man, the man of principle. It is the 
type of goodness. It is no delusion, no myth, 
no fiction. It is a positive quantity, an abso- 
lute entity, a certain identity. The soul is 
the inner man, and corresponds to the physi- 
cal body. One is bone, flesh, and blood; the 
other is life, wisdom, and love, or, if you 
prefer it, vitality, intelligence, and force. 
But to the quickened soul is added truth, jus- 
tice, mercy, and light. It is the Spirit of 
Truth which quickens. The Word of God is 
truth, and it is quick and powerful, discrimi- 
nating between itself and error. Ungodly 
men can no longer hide their immoral naked- 
ness behind a fig-leaf in the great garden of 
Universal Good. In this age of Reason, Ig- 
norance shall no longer form for them a rea- 
sonable excuse for living a life of wickedness. 
No man shall sit in judgment upon them. 
Neither doth God now judge them, but in that 
day, when Death shall call them to account, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 141 

they shall sit in judgment upon themselves, 
and Truth shall be the only arbiter. 



READING THE BOOK OF LIFE. 

To the doubtful and unbelieving in the 
power of Good to triumph over Evil, there is 
no hope of happiness. But to those who be- 
lieve in and worship only the Good, the 
highest happiness is attainable. Good only is 
positive, and God is the only positive quan- 
tity. Evil is negative; it is simply a negation, 
and a negation is nothing. 

Without that implicit faith which believes 
in the positive and ultimate triumph of Good 
over Evil, men can please neither God nor 
intelligent humanity. It is better, therefore, 
that a man should believe something, than 
that he should be skeptical in all things. If 
his faith be not safely anchored to the -power 
of Good, it is a negative, a rope of sand, and in 
the trying hour it will part asunder, and let 
him down to the bottom of the deep sea of 
illimitable wretchedness and despair. 

Faith in one's self is necessary to faith in 
God, and faith in God is necessary to happi- 
ness; for without faith there can be no hope, 
and hope is the brightest winged of all God's 
divine messengers. We believe in Good. 



142 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

Shall we not also believe in God, who is the 
personification of goodness, and who has so 
graciously manifested Himself to us by Life, 
Wisdom, Love, Truth, Justice, Mercy, and 
Light? Shall we longer worship at the shrine 
of Evil, whose daily manifestations are those 
of Death, Ignorance, Hate, Falsehood, Injus- 
tice, Cruelty, and Darkness? Here is the 
grand opportunity of a life, an opportunity to 
exercise a reasonable choice. May Wisdom 
alone guide us in our deliberations, and may 
we choose that good part, which shall not be 
taken away. 

In thus making a feeble attempt to lead you 
From the Shadows to perfect happiness, we 
are only conscious of having performed a 
simple duty, in a very simple way. From the 
Shadows may not, as yet, to many of our 
hearers, be so very apparent. But we may 
safely rely upon their acute powers of percep- 
tion, and their quickened powers of imagina- 
tion, to paint for themselves a weary traveler 
in the wilderness of sin, who has lost his 
reckoning, and who has been supplied with a 
hatchet to cut his way out. 

Every man who would go up to the top of 
the mountain of the Lord's house, must either 
readily find the way, or make it for himself. 
If, in the Divine province of Eternal Good, it 
is decreed that we shall have become an 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 143 

humble instrument in furnishing some forlorn 
and shipwrecked brother with the hatchet of 
Divine Truth, then more than half the labor 
is already accomplished. Blessed is the man 
who readily finds the way; but twice blessed 
is he who, having been long lost in the wilder- 
ness, shall have the moral courage to take up 
the little amateur hatchet of Divine Truth, so 
kindly given, and boldly slash out for himself 
a new-cut road to the Promised Land. 

"Who is the champion? Who the strong? 
Pontiff, or priest, or sceptered throng? 

On these shall fall 
As heavily the hand of Death, 
As when it stays the shepherd's breath 

Beside his stall." 



"Who is the happy warrior? 
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought 
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought; 
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, 
And while the mists are gathering, draws 
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause- 
This is the happy warrior. This is he 
Who every man in arms should wish to be." 

The Star of Empire has wended its way to 
the West. The Star of the East has grown 
dim in Bethlehem. Another great cycle is 
about completed in the history of man. God's 
object lessons are daily spreading out before 



144 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

us like the pages of an open book. Let us as 
good children, hasten to read them, and read- 
ing may we read carefully between the lines, 
gladly catching all the Divine Inspiration 
which the sacred volume so grandly and 
nobly teaches. 



LECTURE XXIII. 

BLOWING THE RAM's HORN. 

What future revelations Good has in store 
for us, can only be reasonably conjectured. 
But it is but natural, as one has said, that he 
who is about to depart for another country 
should speculate in his mind as to what kind 
of a country it is. It is not our province, 
within the narrow compass of these lectures, 
to enter largely upon the vast ocean of voyages 
and discoveries with reference to the spirit 
world. But we may not conceal the fact that 
we have a strong desire to do so. The Spirit 
of Inspiration is ever restless and active, 
sweeping up the mountain side, singing with 
the stars, or returning with the avalanche. 
At some future time we hope to take up the 
silken thread of the beautiful story of human 
life and human happiness, unraveling it, if 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 145 

possible, to the very end. But for the present 
we must content ourselves with a few closing 
observations, which are ever heaving up in the 
mind, moaning like the ocean, which will not 
be at rest. 

Of the irrepressible conflict, it is ominous, 
that the children of darkness have ever 
deplored the existence of the moralist, and 
that the princes of wickedness, in both high 
and low places, hate him to-day worse than 
the Devil hates holy water. If none were 
found to teach the existence of God, the 
power of Good, the beauty of holiness, and 
the delights of happiness, then more than half 
the world of mankind would be pleased. But 
when the moralist speaks of the necessity of 
law, which shall define the boundary line 
between Liberty and License, between Good 
and Evil, then the world is instantly up 
in arms. 

To illustrate, we give herewith the follow- 
ing, as a sample of the sentiment which per- 
vades immorality: 

"A moralist, perchance, appears, 

Led, Heaven knows how, to this poor sod ; 

And he has neither eyes, nor sense, nor ears — 
Himself his world and his own god." 

The following shows the contempt in which 
the moralist is held, and also the general indis- 
position to listen to the voice of Reason: 



146 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

"Shut close the door, press down the latch; 

Sleep soundly in thy intellectual crust; 
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch, 

Near his unprofitable dust." 

In other words, the sentiment is, away with 
the moralist! 

It requires no stretch of imagination to see 
that the above language and quotation is 
spoken with the same pompous dictation 
which centuries ago prompted the spirit of 
Error to exclaim, ''Away with Him! Crucify 
Him! Crucify Him! 

Truth having constrained us to make many 
bold observations, with reference to the import- 
ance and dignity of man, and not desiring to 
offend anyone, we naturally seek to hedge a 
little here on the homestretch, by saying, per- 
haps there has been a mistake somewhere; 
perhaps, after all, man is only an immoral, 
unsocial, unpolitical, and unreasonable being; 
perhaps man was not made upright; perhaps 
Darwinism is true; perhaps agnosticism does 
make numskulls of us all; perhaps we do not 
know anything; and perhaps, according to the 
grand doctrine of the transmigration of souls, 
we may all possibly some day bob up again 
somewhere serenely in a future world, not as 
average citizens, not as preachers, politicians, 
policemen, saloonkeepers, and aldermen, but 
as beautiful specimens of extinct species of 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 147 



prehistoric animals in long-forgotten ages, and 
that we shall then all be in great demand, 
either in the celestial dime museums, or the 
grand zoological gardens of Folly's perpetual, 
infinite, and infernal foolishness. 

Error is the blind Ulysses, and Cyclops has 
gouged out both his eyes. He does not know, 
does not desire to know, nor does not care. 
He has no proper desires, no inspiration, no 
aspiration, no hope, no future, no happiness. 
He is the lost mariner, whose festering bones 
shall serve only to feed the dull protozoans at 
the bottom of the dead sea in the vast ocean 



of eternity. 



FROM THE SHADOWS, 



There is a Locksly Hall for all our earthly 
loves, and sooner or later we shall be called 
upon to leave the manor house. Though we 
may boast of the liberty of man, woman, and 
child, there comes a vapor from the margin of 
the River of Death, which shall blast all our 
earthly hopes. If any life has thus far been a 
failure , cry not for spilled milk. Let the 
dead past bury its dead. Lost opportunities 
may come back to you, and he shall be 



148 FROM THE SHADOWS. 

accounted doubly wise who shall seize upon 
them at their second coming. 

"Rest, sword; cool, blushes. 

Being fooled, by foolery thrive; 
For yet there's time and place 

For every man alive," 

Bid the old sword of a carnal warfare rest 
in its unseemly scabbard, and the carnal 
blushes of a past and silent shame hide their 
vile tints to appear on earth no more. 

Are we ready for the great change? Have 
we been lifted up, and are we standing on our 
spiritual feet, gladly approaching the foothills 
in the mountain country of that wonderful 
land of the spiritual Judea? 

"We hold it true, what e're befall, 
We feel it when we sorrow most; 

'Tis better to have loved and lost,, 
Than never to have loved at all." 

"We love that ancient Saxon phrase, 

Which calls the burial ground God's acre. 

'Tis just, it consecrates the sacred spot, 

And breathes a benison o're the sleeping dust." 

The gentle zephyrs daily rise from the 
source of Eternal Good, and as they pass us 
by they softly breathe a sacred benison o'er 
the heads and hearts of God's divinest crea- 
tures. As they move silently on, takiag on a 
new impetus, they blow a hurricane and roar, 



FROM THE SHADOWS. 149 

going forever onward. They teach us of 
Life and Death, of Happiness and Misery, of 
Heaven, of Hell, of Immortality. 

"Oh, Life! Oh, Love! 
No more, no more delay. 
My spirit longs to flee away 

And be at rest. 
The will of Heaven my will shall be; 
I bow to the Divine^decree, 

To God's behest." 



"Now comes the vapor from the margin, 

Blackening overheath and holt. 
Crowding all the blast before it, 

In its breast a thunderbolt. 

It shall fall — on mortals all. 

As rain, or hail, or fire, or snow; 
For the mighty winds are sweeping onward, 

And we go, we too must go." 

But shall the good return again, and shall 
they once again with consecrated feet stand 
upon the top of God's holy mountain, where 
with one glance of the single eye of Divine 
Wisdom they shall be able to comprehend all 
the hitherto hidden mysteries of God's spirit- 
ual universe? 

The question is doubly answered: 

"The redeemed of the Lord shall return and 



150 FROM THE SHADOWS. 



come with singing unto Zion.'' 



"Oh, Life! So few the years we live, 
Would that the life which Thou dost give 

Were life indeed. 
For here our sorrows fall so fast, 
The happiest hour is when at last 

The soul is freed." 




ONE WAY 
TO 



HYPNOTIZE 



©ne Was to Hypnotise* 



Do not attempt hypnotization unless you 
feel confident you can induce hypnosis . Never 
try to hypnotize any one unless they express 
themselves as perfectly willing to have you 
try. Always have some one else present 
beside the one to be hypnotized. The fol- 
lowing mode of procedure is the one which I 
have used with more or less success, during 
the past four years, (prior to that time I used 
mostly the mesmeri passes down over the face, 
arms and legs.) I shall go into details, and 
show you every thing to be done, without 
leaving you to guess at any thing, as is gen- 
erally the way most writers do, thinking of 
course, that the reader is acquainted with 
facts, which, as a matter of fact, he is not. 

ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 

After procuring a subject, see that the room 
is comfortable, not too hot, nor too cold, 
that the subject is resting in a comfortable 
position in the chair, (be sure and see that the 



i54 ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 

subject's head is not resting on some sharp point 
on the chair-back, ) that the hands rest on either 
knee with the palms downward, the feet must 
rest flatly on the floor. Now request anyone 
who may be present that, ' 'They must remain 
perfectly quiet, there must not be any shuffl- 
ing of feet, whispering or passing about the 
room or crushing of any paper," in fact they 
must remain perfectly quiet for the simple 
reason that anything which would attract the 
attention of the subject will make it utterly 
impossible for you to induce hypnosis. 

Now then say to the subject, in a quiet, 
decisive tone, (not loud or harsh) ' 'Close 
your eyes, roll the eye-balls up and keep them 
up. Think that you cannot open them. Keep 
the eye-lids closed. " Be careful that the 
subject does not get his head thrown too far 
back, as this will foil you in the attempt. 
Place yourself at the right side of the subject, 
stepping, if necessary, at times in front of 
him. 

Close your right hand and carry it to the 
left side of the subjects head, and then open 
the hand and draw it across the forehead, 
letting the ringer tips come in contact with 



ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 155 

the skin, not pressing too much, just such a 
pressure as will sooth and not irritate. Close 
the hand, as before, and make three passes, 
* on the forehead, before making passes 
down over the eye-brows and nose with the 
thumb and two or three front fingers. While 
making the passes over the forehead repeat 
softly to the subject: "Fast, Fast, Now 
your eyes are fast, and when I count three 
you can't open them." Now make three 
passes down over the eye-brows and the nose 
in this way; place the thumb on the right 
temporal, the fingers on the left temporal, 
then draw them together, letting them meet 
at the bridge of the nose, then pass down to 
the tip of the nose. While making these 
passes keep repeating: ''Fast, Fast, Fast, 
now your eyes are fast, you can try hard but 
you can't open them.'' On making the first 
pass down the nose count one, the second 
pass count two, and on the third pass count 
three and say: ''Now try hard, you cannot 
open them." If successful and you want the 
subject to open his eyes, just say, "Allright, 
now, you may open them." At the same 

* Nothing particularly magic about three, doing this only for system. 



156 ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 

time snapping your thumb and fore-finger at 
the left ear, and then say, "Open them, Open 
them." If you wish to place the subject in a 
sleep, repeat all the above passes, saying all 
the time, "Sleep, Sleep, you are going fast 
asleep." Keep making passes and repeat the 
word, "Sleep," until the subject's head begins 
to nod, then grasp the head, at the back, with 
your left hand and place your right hand on 
the forehead and make quite a pressure, blow- 
ing your breath on the top of the head, and 
say, "Sound asleep, Sound asleep!" You will 
then find, if the subject is really asleep, that 
the system is entirely relaxed, that you can 
pick up an arm, letting it go, and it will fall 
back to its place, thus showing that the sub- 
ject does not control the muscles. This is 
the Lethargic stage. To change the subject 
to the Somnambulistic stage, say to the sub- 
ject, with a gentle upward wave of the hand, 
(not touching him), "Now open your eyes 
and look right into mine." Gaze intenly at 
the subject without flinching or wavering 
(notice the listless, unknowing look of the 
subject's eye) then say, "Now your name is 
George Washington, and you are only four 



ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 157 

years old. v Ask him how old he is and he 
will say, "Four years old." What is your 
name? "George Washington." Then give 
the suggestion that he does not remember his 
name and he will accept it just as readily. (I 
will here ask the pardon of the reader for 
springing these old chestnuts, but as they are 
simply examples I hope he will overlook them.) 
In fact the subject is now in the Somnambu- 
listic (or walking) stage, and will carry out 
any suggestions that you may give him; to 
sing, dance, skate, swim, fly, laugh, cry, ride 
stick horses, pick flowers, go up in balloons, 
ride bicycle races on chairs, etc., etc., etc., 
ad infinitum. 

In the Somnambulistic and Lethargic stage 
the subject is (by suggestion) made totally un- 
conscious of any pain. Say to him, slapping 
him on the arm, "You cannot feel any pain in 
this arm," and you will find that he will not 
flinch or even change expression when you 
have completely pierced his arm through and 
through with any sharp instrument. 

The different phenomena to be produced 
by hypnotic suggestion, are legion, but if you 
are new in the business I would suggest that 



1 58 ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 

you prepare yourself, for scientific investiga- 
tion, by reading some books, such a library 
for instance, as is recommeded by "The 
Hypnotic Magazine." This library includes 
among other books, "Hudson's Law of Psy- 
chic Phenomena" and by the way, do not 
forget to read the "Hypnotic Magazine,'' 
which is a fair outspoken organ. This mag- 
azine is published by the "Psychic Publishing 
Company, 56 Fifth Ave., Chicago. It is not 
out of place, it seems to me, to mention the 
"Hypnotic Magazine" here, taking into con- 
sideration the value of the same as a magazine 
and the fact that it is the only magazine now 
published devoted to hypnotism entirely, as 
used by the medical profession and devotees 
generally. 

Now, to continue our subject, I will say, 
should you ever have trouble in awakening or 
dehypnotizing, do not be alarmed, just give the 
subject the suggestion that you do not wish 
him to awake and that he must go deeper to 
sleep, that he will wake in an hour or so, and 
that he cannot help it, make the subject com- 
fortable, go entirely away, and he will pass 
from a hypnotic sleep to a natural one and 



ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 159 

generally awake in the given time. To de- 
hypnotize, snap your thumb and finger close 
to the ear of the subject and say, "All right, 
awake, you are all right." Be sure that he is 
thoroughly awakened before you leave him. 

In speaking of the modus operandi, I in- 
structed you to blow on the head, etc. Do 
not think there is any such thing as magic in 
all this; as was said in Rider Haggard's great 
play ''She," "There is no such thing as 
magic," but this blowing, etc., is simply a 
great suggestive agency which places the sub- 
ject in a passive condition and helps concen- 
tration. 

It seems queer to me that so many people 
should look with such disfavor on hypnotism. 
The only explanation that I can give, is that 
they are perfectly ignorant of the science, and 
are not willing to learn. Hypnotism is the 
outward manifestation of concentration, 
brought about by entirely natural means, and 
not a conglomerated mass of nothingism. So 
many people, when they witness any of the 
different phenomena, do not stop to consider, 
and, say at once, "Charlatanism." 

If a subject is in the Catleptic stage, for 



i6o ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 

example, being suspended on the back of two 
chairs and while in that position, supports a 
large stone, which is, later, broken to pieces, 
the skeptics will universally say, "Oh, they 
have some hidden device to support the stone.'' 
"Any one could do that (hold up a 500 pound 
rock) if he would only try/' or, "The man 
has been trained for the special occasion." 
They do not consider it possible that the 
subject is in a peculiar condition, produced by 
suggestion, and that it is possible to produce 
this rigid state of the body simply by action 
of the mind. How does the trained athlete 
do such wonderful feats; simply by education. 
He weighs the same when he commences to 
train, and weighs the same when he accomp- 
lishes the feat. Then the power was always 
there, it is the education. Why then, cannot 
the hypnotized subject do the same, when 
there is a suspension of his objective mind, 
while he is hypnotized. He can and does. 

The following is from Chamber's Encyclo- 
paedia: "Hypnotism is not any longer to be 
regarded as a mystery, or as a superhuman 
gift, for its action can for the most part be 



ONE WAY TO HYPNOTIZE. 161 

explained by our present knowledge of phy- 
siology and psychology." 

Do not think this method, or, "One Way 
to Hypnotize," is the only one. There are 
many ways. You may take from and 
add to, as the case requires. Words and 
passes that will sooth this particular subject, 
may only irritate the next one you try. Have 
patience, study each case, then experiment and 
take notes. This "One Way to Hypnotize" 
is only to give you a start, you can then work 
out for yourself many different modes of pro- 
cedure. 

I shall not lay down a code of Ethics for 
Hypnotism, or Hypnotists; let every honest 
man be his own guide. Every human being 
is a hypnotist. Every human is a subject, 
or susceptible to hypnotism. Hypnotism is 
the greatest science the world has ever known, 
that is, the classifications are the most exten- 
sive; in fact there is no end. Let us help one 
another to unravel the skein. Christ was the 
king of Hypnotists, not a juggler nor charla- 
tan, but a man with the best wishes of all at 
heart, who was bent upon the consummation 
of all that was good. 



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